After two deaths in five months, One Voice intends to react. The animal protection association announced it was filing a complaint for “mistreatment” after the death Thursday of the orca Inouk, 25, at Marineland in Antibes.
Last October, twelve-year-old Moana died. There are therefore only two orcas left in the Antibes park: Wikie (22 years old), sister of Inouk and mother of Moana, and Keijo (10 years old), who is Wikie's son. All the animals were born at Marineland.
“Nothing has been done to change things”
“We are going to file a complaint for mistreatment, because it is not normal for an orca only 25 years old to die in conditions about which we have alerted,” Muriel Arnal, president of One Voice, explained this Thursday. on franceinfo. “For five years we have been saying that Inouk, supported by scientific reports, is not in good health, that there are problems at Marineland,” says the founder of the association.
Muriel Arnal recalls that the courts “heard” the association” and ordered an “independent expertise”. But despite this, “nothing has been done to change things, neither by Marineland, nor by the Ministry of Ecology,” she regrets.
Read alsoThe suspense continues around the orcas of Marineland in Antibes
The president underlines that the ministry is however starting to “open up to a sanctuary solution, a closed 40 ha stretch of sea which already exists. Today, our emergency appeal is more important than ever.” This is located in Canada, “on the Atlantic side, in Nova Scotia”, specifies Muriel Arnal. “The parents of Inouk, who has just passed away, and Wikie, who is still alive, were captured in the North Atlantic. So this is a sea of origin for these orcas. The indigenous people there are also waiting for them,” she continues.
Muriel Arnal assures that “everything is ready” on site and that all that is missing is a “green light from the ministry for construction to end this year”. She specifies that these orcas will need “time to adapt” to their new environment. According to her, if Inouk had “been transported there in time, he would not have gnawed the walls of the pool and damaged his teeth to the point that all the nerves were raw in this icy water with the risk of septicemia” .