Counselling for the staff of Planète Sauvage, which is claiming 100,000 Euros from us!
Publication of images of the dolphins held at Planète Sauvage in May 2020, complaint about the death of Aïcko, the dolphinarium carries out its threats.
Following a visit from our investigators at the end of May when lockdown ended but when the limit of 100km around home still applied, Planète Sauvage had threatened to bring a complaint against us if the images were published. We did publish them, because our specific rôle is to defend captive dolphins. In their view it was the last straw, and the dolphinarium in Nantes, which said it was losing money because of us, submitted a statement to back up their response to our complaint about the death of Aïcko. They want to reduce us to silence by demanding that we pay them 100,000 Euros!
Staff who can’t see straight when faced with the truth?
First attack: they asked for our complaint relating to Aïcko to be dismissed, claiming that we had “no interest in bringing a legal action”. However that is the precise object of our association. Then they claimed that their business had suffered because of our campaigns. Management of the park even provided counselling for staff and blamed us. Finally they are demanding 100,000 Euros in damages and a minimum of 15,000 Euros!
It’s great if it’s thanks to us that the public are losing interest in witnessing suffering!
Before the associations and scientists who were active in protecting dolphins, belugas, orcas and other large marine creatures made the public at large aware of their sentience, dolphinariums were able to indoctrinate young unskilled trainers to their hearts’ content, a phenomenon that is very well described in ‘Blackfish’, the documentary film dedicated to Tilikum.
The lies and distortions of the truth were denounced and demonstrated by former trainers in no uncertain terms, including after the loss of human lives. It is no surprise under these circumstances that the employees are not happy in their work. Nor is it surprising that they need psychological support when their work involves seeing animals that are so amazing and so thirsty for freedom suffer hour after hour for years on end and even die!
Will proof of the truth about the death of Aïcko be revealed one day?
We have never denied that our aim is an end to the keeping of dolphins and orcas in captivity. Quite simply, the death of the young Aïcko involved unimaginable cruelty. Since his death in these enclosures we have repeatedly demonstrated what really happened. The dolphin calf lived a life of hell, attacked 78 times by the other dolphins, who had become mad with stress. He was not protected, was badly treated, was drowned and had his jaw dislocated.
As an animal-protection association we were not going to be satisfied with the explanations put forward by the keepers and the management of Planète Sauvage. The park would have had nothing to gain from revealing the poor way in which it looks after dolphins, in particular in the last few months of Aïcko’s life.
Sadness in a sort of goldfish bowl
When our investigators returned to the dolphinarium to see how the animals were, they found Galéo, Aïcko’s brother, still covered in bites, Lucille lonely, and the others, also isolated, going round in circles, including Amtan, near the end of her pregnancy at the time and who subsequently lost her calf scarcely a week after he was born. The head trainer had provided the rare visitors with a demonstration of pool surfing, drawn by dolphins. That’s no life for them. And there’s no harm in saying it loud and clear.
An exorbitant sum claimed by the dolphinarium from an NGO!
Therefore instead of responding to our complaint relating to Aïcko with comprehensive documentation and keeping a low profile – after all a dolphin calf died by throwing himself against a wall of their pools – they prefer to attack us and demand an astronomical sum in order to silence us. They hope that if they cut off these funds we should no longer have the resources to continue campaigning.
They have tried to gag us with threats. And as we are not keeping quiet they are now putting their threats into practice in the courts. In demanding such a sum the powerful group that owns numerous animal parks, including Planète Sauvage, know what they’re doing. But it seems they don’t know who they’re dealing with! We shall continue tirelessly to denounce the suffering of the dolphins! Nothing shall stop us!
Translated from the original French by Patricia Fairey