Silence, lies, and betrayals: Welcome to the world of captivity and ministry.

Lies and not keeping to your word

Jon Kershaw, director of Marineland Antibes, June 8th, 2016, before the Minister of Environment represented by the Director of Water and Biodiversity during the discussions prior to the writing of the decree called "dolphinariums" Ending the breeding of captive cetaceans had shown his commitment:

'Regarding the holding and displaying to the public of killer whales, it noted that the 4 orcas currently present in the establishment will no longer reproduce and that no new animals will be introduced in this establishment, which means that the activity of public display of killer whales in France will end with the death of the next animal. Because it had been recorded in previous meetings that a group of orcas must consist of 'at least 3 animals'. Now Marineland refuses to answer our mail about orcas!

The Beauval zoo had meanwhile undertaken the same day, in the person of Rodolphe Delord, its director, and in front of witnesses, to abandon his dolphinarium project at Beauval. The minutes of the work meeting at the ministry state this in black and white: "The Beauval Zooparc had a project of building a dolphinarium which would have been a new generation one and which had been presented to the President of the Republic during his visit on September 11^th, 2015, unfortunately the management of this establishment decided to abandon this project, under the pressure from social networks. "

The Minister of Ecology, meanwhile, did not hesitate on September 19^th, 2017 to respond to one of our deputies: "the captive detention of cetaceans, and in particular the participation of these animals in shows, raise many ethical issues ... the prohibition of the detention of cetaceans in captivity by the ministerial decree of May 3^rd2017 should not be questioned. [...] The economic impact of the ban on cetacean captivity will therefore be moderated, in the light of the progress that this ban will have on animal welfare. In the coming months, new processes of reflexion with regards to animal welfare will be initiated, involving parliamentarians, ethologists and philosophers. “Has this changed? Five months after the cancellation of the so-called "dolphinariums" decree, where are we now?

Silence of the ministry

In order to request a new decree resuming from where the precedent had stopped, the Council of State having cancelled this one on technicalities, we seized several times Nicolas Hulot and his cabinet. We did so ourselves in March 2018 by mail and on several other occasions as well as by other means (emails, tweets ...), as representatives of the Dolphinaria-Free Europe coalition, and also together with our partners La Dolphin Connexion, Network-Cétacés and Sea Shepherd. But he has not answered.

This basic work can only be done if you have someone to talk to. Since we find the door closed, we are forced to act on other fronts. The majority of the population agrees with us, we must save these animals from these prison worlds.

Faced with a wall, we are more determined than ever

We are pressing charges in order to obtain the release of Femke, whom, when we visited her, deeply worried us. She lets her deformed body float without vitality, and remains facing the wall for hours in the day. She has had little contact with other dolphins since Ekinox, her only son, was taken away from her. Sign our petition for her.

As for Aïcko, he did not have the chance to get out of it, his life was so early interrupted... We will reveal to you very soon what he suffered during his last moments of his life, and the reasons for his death. For all those who remain captive, sign our petition to end dolphinariums!

Captive cetaceans are put into hopeless, desperate, and tragic situations. The previous minister had fully measured the scale of the issue. We therefore appeal to the Council of State against the implicit refusal of the present Minister to issue a new order prohibiting the possession of any new cetacean specimens. Sign our petition, demand a new order! Enough is enough, dolphins and orcas do not have the luxury of being able to wait for months and months on end!