Keijo, a son from incest
The result of incest between brother and sister, Keijo was rejected by his mother. Then he watched helplessly as his companions died. What is an orca’s life under these conditions?
Keijo, son from incest between brother and sister, was rejected by his mother. Then he was the helpless spectator of the deaths of many of his companions in misfortune. His future will not be bright if he remains captive.
Keijo is a male killer whale born in Marineland on November 20th, 2013. His mother Wikie and his father Valentin. That makes him a consanguineous child at 12.5%, since Wikie and Valentin were half-sister and half-brother.
Incestuous relationships, observed only in the pool, remain a major problem for most large marine parks. Taku, at SeaWorld Orlando, impregnated her own mother Katina, who gave birth to Nalani in 2006. At Loro Park, Kohana was fertilized twice by her uncle, then she refused to take care of her children. Under these conditions of promiscuity and captivity, how do we educate the little ones? The mothers seem helpless. Is it the same for Keijo?
In any case, we could see Wikie pushing him away from the side of the pool with the help of Moana. It was, as the delphinarium assures, to exercise the orca on the slide-out manoeuvre, that deadly posture where the cetacean runs itself aground on command. Rather, it seems that Wikie had some difficulty accepting her second son, who arrived too early after the birth of the first, which would not have happened in the wild.
Like Moana, Keijo is eager to learn, and he learns quickly. But the intellectual challenges that one asks of him are limited and repetitive. He has already lost the excitement of childhood by banging on the windows, and the flood of October 2015 certainly marked his memory like a hot iron. The first pictures shot just after the disaster showed him very close against the side of Wikie and his half-brother Inouk, in a small black water pool, while the dead body of Valentin had just been washed away. All this, like the agony of Freya, Valentin’s mother, the two little ones saw it. They will not forget it.
However, a site promoting zoos dared to write about the birth of Keijo:
“On 20th November 2013, a new orca infant was born for the second time from the efforts of Wikie at Marineland Antibes. His father is unknown, but there is a strong suspicion that it is his half-brother, Valentin. This brings the number of orcas in captivity to 53, and with the recent addition of 8 wild orcas captured in Russia, as well as the female Morgan, saved by the Dolfinarium of Harderwijk and 2 babies born remotely by the orca Kshamenk this year, the future of these animals in captivity is radiant “.
Oh yes, radiant …