Plight of orcas and dolphins at Marineland continues

Two orcas at Marineland in 2015

The facility finally closed its doors to the public in January this year, following years of campaigning by Born Free and other animal welfare organisations and experts, and in response to falling visitor numbers following the ban on cetacean shows in France which came into effect in November 2021. 

Born Free has consistently called for the phasing out of keeping whales, dolphins and other marine mammals in captive facilities, on the grounds that it is impossible to provide for these highly intelligent, socially complex and wide-ranging animals in concrete tanks where their movements are severely restricted, and where they are forced to perform unnatural and demeaning tricks for the sake of public entertainment.  

In January this year, we launched our Tank Free campaign urging people to reject the exploitation of cetaceans in dolphinariums. We were instrumental in achieving the closure of the last dolphinarium in the UK in the early 1990s and share the objectives of the Dolphinaria-Free Europe coalition of which we are a co-founder and active member.  

While we celebrated the closure of the Marineland facility, we made it clear that the onus was now on the management at Marineland and the French authorities to work with animal welfare organisations to identify solutions for the marine mammals and other animals at the facility which provide the highest standards of species-appropriate lifetime care. 

Recent images circulated in the media suggest that while Marineland and the French authorities continue to dither and disagree, the conditions for the animals at the facility are deteriorating rapidly. With only a skeleton staff tasked with feeding the animals, the concrete pools are crumbling, and the orcas and dolphins have no means of occupying themselves beyond swimming in endless circles.  

Marineland’s management’s preferred option was to transfer the orcas to Loro Parque in Tenerife, Spain, where they would continue to be exploited for public entertainment and profit. Offers by French NGO One Voice to assist with the interim care of the animals have not been taken up, and the authorities cannot seem to agree on potential sea sanctuary solutions. 

The minds of all stakeholders involved must now be directed to finding a rapid and humane solution for the orcas and dolphins at Marineland as a matter of the utmost priority. Born Free is calling for all stakeholders to put commercial considerations to one side and focus on addressing the welfare of these beleaguered animals, who should never have found themselves in captivity in the first place. 

Going forward, long-term and humane options must be developed to ensure that animals at other captive facilities do not suffer similar delays as and when those facilities respond to the ever increasing public and political pressure to close their doors.