A deliberation in Marineland’s favour: a representation of the road still to be travelled to defend the orcas at the dolphinarium

Apparently, principles count very little in administrative justice. Above all, it must be shown that the necessary steps have not been taken by the parties concerned. And unfortunately, even if we consider the fact that the case file presented by Marineland at the hearing on 25 May 2022 is clearly biased in favour of the dolphinarium, its mere existence is enough to have convinced the judges that another independent expert is not useful…

The last straw, knowing that we were not asking that they entrust the orcas to us, just that the justice system can objectively recognise the facts regarding the state of the water and the infrastructures (which we contest in view of the images that we have published) and the orcas’ follow-up medical care, which is not done by a veterinarian that has been paid by the dolphinarium…

The reports from Ingrid Visser on Inouk and Moana, are, in this respect, shouting about how urgent it is to get them out of there. We are wondering how the urgent applications judge could decide that the images and reports were not sufficient to establish that an interim period had to be set up between the documents from the dolphinarium and ours.

They preferred to only hear the opinions of a land-based wildlife veterinarian not specialising in orcas and a Marineland employee.

«We are not asking for the impossible but for an independent expert whose specialist would have been appointed by the tribunal and whose work would have been invoiced to One Voice. Therefore, this will not impact either the taxpayer or anyone else, all while being entirely directed by the court. We are studying the possibility of appealing this decision.»Muriel Arnal, President of One Voice

With the law against animal mistreatment, voted in in November 2021, dolphinariums (Planète Sauvage [Wild Planet] and Marineland Antibes) will be able to continue to exploit cetaceans, provided that the experiments are carried out on animals… a gift from parliamentarians to captivity lobbies. Just like Wikie was already subjected to: a researcher ‘taught’ him to repeat English words, giving the illusion of speaking and understanding the language. But orcas already have ultra-developed ways of communicating. It is us who are still incapable of understanding them…

We will stop at nothing, of course, in our fight for the orcas kept at Marineland: Wikie, Moana, Keijo, and Inouk. We are also continuing to lead our sanctuary project with our partner, Whale Sanctuary Project.

We have other ongoing complaints against the park and we are looking into the possibility of appealing this decision due to the fact that the tribunal has ignored orca specialists’ opinions and has only followed up on the opinion of a veterinarian who has no expertise in orcas and does not even work in the region where Marineland is, and a Marineland employee who is not a scientist. Impartiality is rearing its head again.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice