Moana a child from a syringe
Portrait of an Orca: The first to be born by artificial insemination in Europe, Moana suffered from the rejection of his mother, and the painful separation with his sister.
Moana, the first orca that was born by artificial insemination in Europe suffered the rejection of his mother. His sister has been sent thousands of miles away, they cannot play together anymore. His life is one of boredom and obedience and with surrogate parents …
Moana is a male killer whale born in Marineland Antibes on March 16th, 2011. His mother is Wikie and his father is Ulises, a wild orca captured in Iceland and held at SeaWorld in San Diego, California.
Moana was the third orca in the world to be born by artificial insemination, and the first ever in Europe. It is unclear whether this mode of reproduction, still experimental, will one day affect the health of this infant. The trainers say he is smart. This means for them that by the age of one year, Moana had already performed a range of forced movements, which most orcas only learn later, after long years of training. He had understood everything just by looking at his mother. And we understand his enthusiasm to do well!
In the closed, confines of the world where he is forced to live, within this glass jar without any rocks, any seaweed or any fish where he has been turning around and around in circles since his birth, the slightest distraction is worth its weight in gold. One would fight to be able to repeat those human words over and over again, not unlike a scratched record. Such is the life that is imposed on Wikie, so much boredom weighs heavy on the this big pool where under the heat of the midday sun live these big black fish with the sadness in their eyes.
Moana was very independent very early. Too early perhaps, because very quickly his mother left the trainers the burden of his education.
In 2013, the small orca with a hopeless future became the older brother of Keijo, a baby clearly neither desired nor expected. A year later, his half-sister Amaya was born from the same father as him. But he will never have the happiness of playing with her, since she is was taken thousands of miles away, to the pools of San Diego.