Two dolphins from Parc Astérix, Cessol and Guama, are already in Sweden

Yesterday Norrköping Airport in Sweden published photos of a cargo plane transporting dolphins from France. Djurrättsalliansen, our Swedish partner in the Dolphinaria-Free Europe coalition, alerted us. We then found out how many there were, their ages and the reason for transferring them.

The dolphins concerned were Guama, born in the wild and captured in Cuba in 1987 when he was only five years old, and Cessol, the other male in Parc Astérix, born at Seaworld Orlando in 1984. Both are very old but they have been sent to Kolmårdens, a Swedish dolphinarium, which opened in 1969, for breeding. Where more than sixty dolphins have already died!

Amongst Guama's offspring at Astérix are Bahia, born in 2015, and her sister Bélize, born two years later, and before them there were their big brother, Naska, born in 2010, and their half-brother, Ekinox, Femke's son. The two young males were sold to Greece in 2016. Guama is also the father of Aïcko and Galéo, who were sent to Planète Sauvage. We are well aware of the tragedy that befell Aïcko.

That is why, when we were working in 2017 with the advisers of Ségolène Royal, then Minister of Ecology, we had asked for (and obtained!) a ban on breeding AND on exchanges of cetaceans between dolphinariums. For those who have turned captive animals into an industry, sensing the way the wind has been blowing since the announcements Barbara Pompili made at the end of September, it was unthinkable to allow these animals the opportunity to spend a few years of retirement living as dolphins should. The documents had been prepared as early as 25 November and 21 December 2020! Two months ago. That is why we are not giving up the fight against these animal parks.

Given their age, stress could easily have killed them: Guama, for whom freedom is such a distant memory, and Cessol, who will never have known freedom. We are extremely worried about Femke, who is already very fragile. Where has she been sent? Getting rid of such old dolphins by sending them away to breed shows total lack of respect.

Obviously at the moment there are no sanctuaries in Europe, but the Parc showed not the slightest willingness to go in that direction. Parc Astérix will have made a good profit from the dolphins without ever giving them anything in return or even considering it. When one thinks of the profits that the managers of the dolphinarium have made from them, they could at least have created somewhere for the dolphins to live out their lives in peace with being subject to any form of exploitation. The system continues, as does our fight.