Two young dolphins on their way to greece

The cabin door shuts with a bang on Ekinox and Naska. The two dolphins jump in their harnesses, despite the huge doses of sedatives that they have received. Soon, the airplane will vibrate from the roaring motor as the plane flies towards Greece. The two young dolphins, only five and six years of age, have just left their mothers forever. Farewell Bailly! Farewell Femke! Despite the fact that they are way off being adults yet, the park thinks they are mature enough to be sent to new aquariums, as part of the “European Endangered Species Programme (EEP), for the breeding and conservation of
endangered species,” which dolphins are not.

All of their life, these young ‘stallions’ will encounter unknown inmates, furious to see them disembark into an always confined space. Each transfer is a nightmare for them. Recently, in 2014, the young Angel died of stress on the tarmac. In 2016, Galéo exposed the glaring problem of a bad social integration in an out of control community of detainees.

This is the fate that awaits these two young males who will be leaving Park Asterix. In a few weeks, they will be sent to Attica Zoo. They won’t be the only ones: Veera, Delfi, Leevi, and Eevertti will also soon join the Greek aquarium from the Tampere dolphinarium in Finland. Lacking visitors, the establishment was forced to close last October. After trying for some time to send them to a marine sanctuary, the Särkänniemi theme park finally decided to send the four survivors to Greece. But these survivors consist of an old couple of tired dolphins and their two young sick dolphins. And the remaining two Lithuanian dolphins from Attica Zoo will be the dolphins with which these French dolphins will share their new life? Are they hoping to recreate a new family with this motley crew?

At first populated by 11 Lithuanian dolphins, 3 of which were caught in the Black Sea, the Attica Zoo dolphinarium, like all of the others, can’t offer good conditions for dolphins. Two dolphins died and two were still-born between 2010 and 2015. And Park Asterix and the Särkänniemi theme park have decided to send their ‘specimens’ there instead of looking at a rehabilitation solution in a sheltered sea location.

Why? It should be known that for a few months now, there have been strange movements afoot in the European dolphinariums. Harderwijk seems to want to rid itself of its surplus in Spain or Dubai, whilst other dolphins circulate from one country to another in strict secrecy, discretely discharged and re-embarked. Is the dolphin market already reorganising itself?

One thing is certain, that supplying new dolphins to the Attica Zoo will reinforce its position. In Greece, the law banning wild animal shows was voted by parliament in 2012. Still not in application, it is just as valid for circus animals as it is for dolphins. In artificially increasing the population at Attica, the industry undoubtedly hopes to prevent its definitive closure and indefinitely slow the implementation of this law.

In their damp hammock, their skin covered in white lanolin, their eardrums screaming under the horrendous pressure, shivering with cold, our exiled dolphins don’t think about all of the above. They simply have to endure the long voyage and suffer the sadness and anguish, as they travel further away from their mothers and their family, left much too early to never be seen again.

This isn’t how wild dolphins travel. This isn’t how they create new ‘pods’ either.

Who would still like to lead us to believe that dolphinariums care about the dolphins that they exploit? How can Park Asterix justify such a commercial decision?

One Voice has written to them to ask them, backed up by experts, to put an immediate stop to the reproduction and exchange programmes for the dolphins.