A little slave has been born at port-saint-père

Hugging close to her mother's side, a baby dolphin swims in circles in the lukewarm water, under a beating sun

It can only have been born in the last few days, and is still breathing awkwardly with a nodding head, just above the surface of the water. Amtan, its mother, is a young sixteen year old dolphin, born in the Harderwijk dolphinarium. Living in Planète Sauvage since 2008, she has just given birth to her first child.

No-one is there to guide her in her new role as a mother. To entrust her to Lucille would be too dangerous. Last year, this unhappy dolphin with a tendency for deep depression killed Parel's baby in a brawl, also a firstborn. A senseless act in a natural environment but sadly common in artificial pools. Yet, Lucille is the only one who knows how to raise a child, the only one who has learnt from her own mother.

Who is Amtan's mother?

Who is she? She's Molly, born in the Gulf of Mexico in 1980. Her daughter could really do with her mother's guidance at the moment! But Molly remains in Holland.

This is how the dolphinariums operate: they separate the children from their mothers well before they become adults. The young mother is anxious. She doesn't really know how to look after her child. When a trainer offers her a fish, she doesn't even approach the sides of the pool. When the fish is thrown into the water, she doesn't touch it. Is she ill? Stressed? It is understandable. No baby has grown up in these pools. Above all, there have been many deaths in not many years.

First, there was Sammy, a young blue and white dolphin

He died in 1999 in the newly built Planète Sauvage pools. Then it was Thea's turn, a young female who came from Holland with her friends Parel and Amtan in 2008. She died three years later at the age of nineteen never having had a child. Minimos, who came from Park Asterix, near Paris, died at the age of eight. The cause of death is still unknown. And then there was Little, Parel's daughter, who didn't survive a week.

Will this fragile individual swimming alongside its mother live for a long time?... From the age of five or six, this baby dolphin will live what Galeo and Aicko are living: forced to incessantly fight in an kind of endless drama where the top dogs will always win. If the baby is a female, she will be impregnated until exhaustion. This young dolphin, with its body tailored for speed, will never swim in a straight line for more than a few metres before meeting a wall. It will never dive down to the depths chasing fleeting fish. This marine mammal will never know the sea.

On the 31st of August, One Voice visited Planète Sauvage to check on the little Galeo and the other dolphins. This is when they saw Amtan, accompanied by her newborn. An additional area of concern… It's time that this stops.

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Photo caption: family life is essential to dolphins