#wikie

An unexpected turn of events, but a welcome one.

This is a video from the fb page run by the animal care team at Marineland Antibes in France. It made me happy and relieved and sad at the same time. These people are still here. Still doing their very best to take of their beloved animals, stuck in limbo for more than a year already. I so, so wish the best for them. I so wish Wikie and Keijo will be moved to Loro Parque, where they can be with other killer whales. I so wish their trainers will be involved in such a move. Wikie was one of the first Killer whales I ever saw for real; she was only 8 years old then. She, and this place, will always occupy a special part in my heart.

This is all I can say to this.... That's a real sign at the site of the proposed sanctuary. The bay isn't safe for shellfish, so putting whales in there feels utterly insane to me.

It sickens me how much these grifters continue to grift and have so much sway over the French government. The tanks are falling apart and these whales need somewhere to go now.

They're also supposed to take the belugas from Marineland Canada but I guess???? We're just going to have orcas too? I mean, it's pretty obvious that Lori and Charles want orcas more than belugas. They're much more iconic and the public seems more drawn to them (and donating to organisations around orcas).

They really are just throwing hats into multiple rings and hoping one of them stays there. Yet they still haven't built a single goddamn thing and those whales need to go somewhere else now.

Loro Parque seems to be on track in integrating Teno with Adan, so I hope that means they might have capacity to take Wikie and Keijo soon. But the French government appears to consistently be rejecting their proposal in favour of the dumbass pipedream that doesn't exist.

For those unaware: Marineland in Antibes, France has been closed down since January, but they still have two orcas ( Wikie and her son Keijo), along with several dolphins, languishing away in deteriorating pools. The French government has blocked two attempts to relocate the orcas, and one orca (neither of the ones named here) has already died from the deteriorating state of the pools.

I wish I knew. :(

Awareness is all I can think of, if it's not too little, too late. I don't understand how the government can give all this power to an activist organization, it's like they "own" the whales now. For over a year, the park has been stuck at the whim of One Voice.

I'm trying to be hopeful that the government realizes its madness at the last moment, when the choice is basically Loro Parque or euthanasia, but I don't know what we can do.

Sky News Interviews JV Regarding the Orca that Mimics Humans