Femke, the last shows before closing for winter
The last shows of the 2018 season at the Asterix Park dolphinarium have taken place, in almost freezing conditions. Femke and the other dolphins will find themselves trapped all winter in their tiny pool in freezing temperatures.
The last shows of the 2018 season at the Asterix park dolphinarium took place this weekend of November 3rd and 4th. It was only a few degrees above zero, and we are only in the autumn. Guama, Baïly, Beauty, Femke, Belize, Bahia, Aya and Cécil and the sea lions Gonzo, Kaï, Santo and Smack will find themselves locked up all winter in their tiny pools. In the freezing cold, Femke staring at the walls of her pool will stay there with the other dolphins and without Ekinox, her beloved son.
Saturday, November 3rd, 5 ° C at Plailly. It’s eleven o’clock in the morning, and Femke and her companions who are in this misfortunate situation must participate in one of the last shows of the season. Exhibited thus, there to amuse the public and to perform for fish.
At the end of the season at the Asterix park, Femke seemed like “supercharged ” for the show, just to deceive the public who are unconscious of what is actually being played out before their eyes. The dolphinarium tells us about “handling”. For this last opening weekend of the year, Femke was put to work, solicited as ever before the stands, on which the freezing families sat trying to keep as warm as they could, the children bundled up under hats and scarves. But soon the show finished: the curtain. Once again, Femke became almost motionless on the surface, fixing her gaze sometimes on a plastic bottle or sometimes on the walls, her sadly sagging dorsal fin, a reflection of her life…
This year again, we never stopped to give warning about the personal story of Femke: her capture, her placing into a pool between four walls, her health problems, the separation from her little Ekinox, which is now two years, and her depression that followed… The management of the dolphinarium denies this evidence.
Yet since the spring, we have filmed her many times. The reports from internationally renowned scientific experts are alarming. She seems to have given up living in the full sense of the word. Out of sight, since last year, no sign of improvement of her psychological state. We launched a petition to have her reunited with her son, whose exploitation has just been recognized as illegal and that both are being transferred to a marine sanctuary. More than 113,000 people support us in this fight! We even went to the Prefecture of Oise to Beauvais so that the image of Femke are on display in front of the offices of the one person who has the power to remove her from the park. Our intervention in this public park at the end of a show this summer has made known her fate to a multitude of people and families who come to have fun. Children should not be made to believe that the place of extremely intelligent sentient beings lies in tiny pools and that their purpose is only to entertain us.
One Voice also requests that a new ministerial decree be issued to organize the end of dolphinariums. Femke is dying from within, it is a silent drama of an abyssal depth. Even though the park is closed, we will continue to defend her, we have pressing charges for her!
Please sign our joint petition with Réseau-Cetaceans and the Brigitte Bardot Foundation and share the story of Femke!