[Image: X/ The Last Show]
A new video making the rounds online shows two orcas — Wikie, 24, and her 11-year-old calf Keijo — listlessly circling an algae-slicked pool in southern France, and it’s stirred up yet another tsunami of global concern.
Because apparently, 2025 is still the year we haven’t figured much out yet.
France, awkwardly juggling legal red tape and bad PR, has been scrambling to find a new home for the pair ever since their old digs, a marine park on the French Riviera, got the plug pulled. That’s since a law was passed in 2021, finally banning marine mammal shows, per CBS News.
Marineland in Antibes, once a hotspot for splashy dolphin stunts and overpriced snacks, officially shut its gates to the public in January. Attendance had been circling the drain anyway, so the 2021 law just gave them the final push.
In a February Hail Mary, park management begged to ship the orcas and 12 dolphins to two parks in Spain. Spanish authorities said non, citing that the facilities weren’t suited for the animals. France, meet your new favourite catch-22.
“The situation at Marineland Antibes is an emergency,” said Canada-based NGO TideBreakers in a social media post after publishing the now-viral video.
“Leaving them in a shut-down facility, confined to a crumbling, decrepit tank, is simply not an option,” it said.
And no, they’re not being dramatic. The drone footage, shot earlier this month, paints a bleak picture: two massive orcas gliding in tight circles, their tank edges tinged with algae, surrounded by the ghosts of marine exhibits past. If this were a movie, it’d be a horror film.
Two orcas, Wikie and her son Keijo, along with 12 dolphins are currently stranded in algae-infested, abandoned pools after a park shut down in France.
Activists warn the animals are at risk of illness or death if not relocated soon.pic.twitter.com/wpjP5c8p1E
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) May 16, 2025
TideBreakers said that should the two orcas fall ill, they “will likely be euthanised or succumb to the deteriorating environment,” the group warned.
Cue the PR damage control: contacted by AFP, Marineland management insisted the tanks are “well-maintained,” and 50 staff are still showing up daily to care for the animals. As for the algae? Totally normal, they claim — just your friendly springtime bloom from seawater filters. And they scrub it. A lot.
Backing them up is Mike Riddell, the park’s former manager of 26 years, who was booted in 2006 during an ownership shuffle. He claims the green fuzz isn’t new – AFP photos from 2020 show the same slimy décor.
Still, TideBreakers’ footage landed with a splash, prompting an outcry, and apparently, even death threats aimed at Marineland staff, with “save the whales” turning into threats to humans.
Here is Tidebreakers’ official statement about the situation of 2 orcas and 12 dolphins remaining in a shut down Marineland Antibes. pic.twitter.com/SVbUAaIvYP
— TideBreakers (@tide_breakers) May 18, 2025
Park officials say they’re just as worried, but talks with France’s environment ministry have been… less than fruitful. The ministry, contacted by AFP, insists they’re monitoring the situation, and that the animals are “housed under good conditions” while the park hunts for “alternative solutions.”
Right, because a crumbling aquarium in shutdown mode is the epitome of good conditions.
Animal rights orgs have a different idea: get these orcas out of the concrete soup and into an actual sanctuary. Somewhere they can swim in real sea water, not put on shows, and, you know, live.
Lori Marino of the Whale Sanctuary Project has a spot ready to go in Nova Scotia, which she told the BBC is: “The only option left.” Her group already pitched the plan, but the French ecology ministry binned it earlier this year. Classy.
There’s also a petition floating around demanding Wikie and Keijo be sent to the Nova Scotia sanctuary, and in case that’s not persuasive enough, environmental legends Jane Goodall, Sylvia Earle, and Jean-Michel Cousteau have already thrown their heavyweight signatures on a letter backing the move.
France then toyed with the idea of shipping the orcas off to Japan, but the government stepped in again and said non, insisting the animals only go to a European park with top-tier welfare standards. Except, the one facility that actually qualifies — in Tenerife — was vetoed last month by Spanish officials, who ruled the conditions also didn’t cut it. Dead end number three.
Meanwhile, NGOs like One Voice and Sea Shepherd are asking to send their own people into Marineland to see what’s really going on behind those algae-covered walls.
Born in captivity, Wikie and Keijo aren’t equipped to survive in the wild. So doing nothing is a death sentence with a slow, chlorinated drip.
The longer-term fix? Both the French ministry and activists agree: build a full-blown sanctuary where whales and dolphins can live in semi-wild conditions — a kind of assisted freedom. Riddell estimates such a setup would cost $2.2–3.3 million a year.
Pricey? Yes. But considering the orcas could live for decades, maybe it’s time we paid up.
[Source: CBS News]
