And will Wikie and Keijo become Loro Parque Zoo’s new “ambassadors” rather than being retired to the whale sanctuary in Nova Scotia?
On Friday, November 22nd, Loro Parque Zoo reported “the loss of our beloved 29-year-old male orca Keto.” The previous day on social media, they had warned that he had been seriously ill for several weeks.
In a brief eulogy, the zoo wrote: “For the Loro Parque family, Keto was not just an ambassador of his kind, but an irreplaceable being who left an indelible mark on our hearts.”
And in the wake of Keto’s death, the zoo may be able to replenish their diminishing collection of orcas with the two surviving orcas at Marineland Antibes: Wikie and her son Keijo.
Keto’s history as an “ambassador”
While Loro Parque Zoo’s statement that Keto’s death was a blow to his caregivers was undoubtedly true, we have to ask what it means to say that a captive orca is, or can ever be, an “ambassador” to the audiences who come to see him perform.
That is especially, and tragically, true for Keto, in that the single “message” that Keto ever delivered to the world beyond his tank is that a stressed, aggressive orca in a concrete tank is a bomb waiting to go off. And on December 24th, 2009, that bomb exploded when the 6,600-pound orca dragged his trainer, Alexis Martínez, to the bottom of the pool and killed him.
More on that in a moment. But first, what does the death of Keto mean for Wikie and Keijo, the surviving mother-and-son orcas at Marineland Antibes in the south of France?
What it could mean for Loro Parque Zoo to acquire Wikie and Keijo
For Loro Parque, with the death of yet another orca – the fourth in the last three years – Wikie and Keijo could represent an opportunity to replenish their “stock.” And given the whales’ relatively young ages, Wikie and Keijo could make good breeders for the zoo.
And since French law is bringing an end to displaying whales and dolphins in France, the zoo might be able to obtain a new pair of “beloved ambassadors.”
What drove Keto to kill his trainer?
Writing in Outside Online after Keto had killed Alexis Martinez in 2009, journalist Tim Zimmerman noted that for several months before the attack, Martínez had been telling his girlfriend that all was not well at the zoo’s Orca Ocean exhibit, telling her “there was a lot of aggression between the killer whales and that they sometimes refused to obey commands, disrupting training and the shows.”
The young novice was feeling especially concerned about the upcoming Christmas show. “My job is especially risky, and I really need to be well rested and ready,” he’d said. “With everything that is going on, something could happen at any time.”
And just a short time later, it did happen.
Keto at Loro Parque Zoo
Born in 1995, Keto had spent his life being shuttled among entertainment parks: from SeaWorld Orlando to SeaWorld San Diego, and then to SeaWorld San Antonio before being sent to Loro Parque Zoo in the Canary Islands.
Now aged 10, he had arrived on a wide-body transport plane along with Tekoa, a young male from SeaWorld San Antonio, and two young females, Kohana and Skyla, who had been separated from their mothers at SeaWorld Orlando for the move. Zimmerman writes:
“The four Loro Parque killer whales also struggled to adapt to one another. In the wild, most killer whales live in family groupings, or pods, with a well-organized matriarchal structure. Keto, Skyla, Kohana and Tekoa were all bred and born in marine parks, but they had been removed from their established social structures at SeaWorld San Antonio and SeaWorld Orlando.
Keto was already stressed and angry. He dragged Martinez to the bottom of the pool and killed him. “Without the ties of family or language, marine park whales have to sort out an ad hoc social pecking order, often through bullying and aggression, which sometimes results in a relatively stable grouping and sometimes not. The social structure was likely complicated at Loro Parque because there was no mature and clearly dominant female to establish order.”
In 2009, as Loro Parque hurried to open its new Orca Ocean exhibit, experienced SeaWorld trainers from the United States were being rotated in and out of Loro Parque to help train the new staff. Among them was Dawn Brancheau, who formed a close friendship with Alexis Martinez during her visit from SeaWorld Orlando.
But Keto was already stressed and angry, and soon after Brancheau returned home to the U.S., Keto dragged Martinez to the bottom of the pool and killed him.
Even more tragically, just a few months later at SeaWorld Orlando, the stressed and depressed orca Tilikum would kill Brancheau. And while her death would spark shock around the world, Loro Parque managed to prevent the death of Martinez from being widely reported.
But if Loro Parque could keep the death of one its trainers under wraps, they could not hide the death of the orcas: Victoria, a 10-year-old female, in 2013; Skyla, a 17-year-old female, in 2021; Ula, a 2-year-old female in 2021; Kohana, a 20-year-old female in 2022; and now Keto.
In the wake of all these deaths, Wikie and Keijo represent potential new “ambassadors.” (On its website, the zoo is now calling itself the “Loro Parque Animal Embassy.”)
The options now for Wikie and Keijo
Until recently, the French government was considering three possible options for Wikie and Keijo: the Kobe Suma aquarium in Japan (with which Marineland Antibes had already entered into a contract), Loro Parque Zoo in the Canary Islands, or retirement to the sanctuary we are establishing in Nova Scotia.
On November 25th, the French Minister of Ecology took the Kobe Suma aquarium off the table when she announced that she would not permit them to be shipped to an aquarium in Japan.
That leaves two choices for their future: to be put on display at Loro Parque Zoo, where Wikie could also be bred, or to retirement to the true, natural “orca ocean” of the Whale Sanctuary.
Our ability to demonstrate that we can raise the remaining funds needed to complete the sanctuary and to care for the whales could help tip the scale in favor of the Whale Sanctuary.
That’s why, as we approach the end of 2024, we are laying out the full picture of the options for Wikie and her son Keijo.
Your donation of whatever size – large or small, one-time or sustaining – is what it will now take to demonstrate that we can complete the sanctuary and welcome these two surviving whales.
Your urgent and immediate Holiday gift can be the gift of a new life for them beyond their wildest imagining.
Thank you for your continued support.
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