#kshamenk

I hope he rests well. Swim free, my brother. 🩵

I randomly found this video, and I'm 100% sure the man in the video is lying about the "this orca hasn't moved since 1992" part alongside other things, although the tank does look far too small for an orca (note: I'm not an expert on cetaceans and cetacean captivity. I could be wrong) .

Plenty of anti-cetacean captivity comments under the video too

This is Kshamenk - he passed away last year but was rescued as a 3 year old calf - so completely non releasable - and lived at Mundo Marino until he died of cardiac arrest at 33 years old. His tank wasn't ideal but he absolutely moved around that area and was not confined to that one tiny circular tank - it was more likely that was the medical pool.

He had access to the larger show pool throughout the day, though it does seem like the pools were also for the dolphins - so that may have limited his space too.

I found this 10 year old footage showing his day to day. I believe his enrichment program had improved quite a lot since then but he was living with dolphins at that time.

I'm not sure where the underwater viewing area was in this video

Maybe the show pool? But it does gives us a bit more perspective on how large and deep his habitat was.

Mundo Marino has reported that Kshamenk has died.

He deserved so much better than spending 33 years (25 of them alone) in a dump of a theme park.

photo by Caio Ribeiro

kshamenk (pronounced shah-menk) was a captive male orca who lived at mundo marino in argentina. he had been a wild argentinian orca, but in 1992, at the age of ~3, he was captured from a beach on which he was stranded. he was in critical condition, and deemed to be unreleasable.

one story regarding his capture goes as follows: in november 1992, three fishermen witnessed four whales stranded on a beach. they informed mundo marino about the situation. mundo marino found only kshamenk left on the beach, while the other orcas had seemingly been able to swim away with the rising tide. kshamenk was rescued by mundo marino and taken to the facility.

Kshamenk, Argentinas last surviving captive Orca died earlier today. The news just hit me.

Fuck this shit. We failed him.

We failed another one.

Its a miracle that he even survived that long in this terrible disgusting facility. Rest in peace, little boy, may you swim free and forever.

You poor soul never deserved any of this. If only those fuckass activists would have laid the focus on you, maybe you could have been saved. Instead you were forgotten, ignored and neglected by everyone. Im so angry. First Kiska, then Lolita and now Kshamenk. History repeats itself over and over again, while activists still focus on seaworld instead of the individuals who actually need savings. The individuals kept isolated and whose wellbeing was neglected for decades. I am mad. He didnt just die, he was murdered.

Some beautiful pictures of Kshamenk from Mundo Marino’s website, that I had never seen before.

I have heard the news about Kshamenk being sick, and some photos definitely show him being extremely underweight. Then there are some photos and videos that claim to be more recent, that show him looking possibly better.

I understand we want to know how these animals are doing from day to day, but realistically, we are no more entitled to this information than to that of any zoo’s lion or zebra or eagle.

Perhaps it would be wise of them to keep him out of shows, but if he really wants to do shows, it would do him no good to deny him this.

In any case, Kshamenk is 34 years old, not a young boy anymore. I hope he pulls through, but only a couple of males have lived longer than him (Tilikum was 36-37 when he died, and Ulises is now 45). In the wild, extremely few males reach the age of 40.

When Tilikum died at 37 (counting his DOB as January 1st, and likely born in 1980), only six Southern and Northern resident bulls were older than him, out of hundreds of whales.

Again, I hope this scare is exaggerated and that while he clearly has been very underweight recently, he will pull through and live another ten years or more, but it does not seem very likely.

Mundo Marino shared a video of Kshamenk. While we can’t see his body, his head is looking great, and I’ve seen several show photos from recent days where he’s looking in good condition and really reaching his tail into the air.