Alizé

Alize
16.05.2016
Antibes
Alizé
Exploitation for shows

On the 13th of May 2016, the young Alize died at the age of 24 in a medical pool at Marineland, Antibes. According to the park, the dolphin had been suffering from incurable kidney problems for some time. Ok, but what were these problems? And why were they incurable?

As is typical upon hearing a eulogy from a dolphinarium, we are left feeling perplexed. « The trainers were fond of her independent personality, she was cheerful and playful. Alize was part of a group of dolphins whose births, over the last decades, ensure the continuity of future generations ». Independent and playful? Alize was a slave, son of slaves, and had no choice other than to ‘play’ rather than hunt and explore the vast ocean with his friends. As for the continuity of generations, he will never be a father. And in his last year, he was no longer cheerful… At the beginning of 2015, an internal source leaked that two dolphins had died. A third, Alize, was very ill. In July, the director finally declared, « Eclair died in February 2015, Mila-Tami in January 2015. Alize is still with us, I just said goodbye to him before leaving ». Recently however, a white tent covering the medical pool was generating curiosity – a sign that a dolphin was dying. It was Alize, broken by an « incurable kidney disease ».

What disease are we talking about?

Without access to the medical files, we can only guess, but all evidence points to kidney stones, as is the case for many other captive dolphins.

 »
Comparison of Nephrolithiasis Prevalence in Two Bottlenose Dolphin Populations, » a scientific study published in 2013 explains essentially that, « Nephrolithiasis, or urinary tract stone disease is very common in the Tursiops species kept in dolphinariums. » « In contrast, comparative analysis shows that this disease is not present in the natural environment of the wild dolphins in Sarasota Bay ».

In other words, Alize’s kidney problems were a direct consequence of life in captivity.

Many other infections of this type, which can be classed as nosocomial infections, decimate the pools. But also lung diseases provoked by chlorine, kidney diseases linked to massive consumption of food supplements and an excess of red blood cells, stomach ulcers induced by stress, and fungal infections due to a life confined in warm and badly filtered water, etc. As for the kidney stones, the insufficient hydration of dolphins fed on frozen fish could be the reason – as well as them being fed solely during the day as their keepers don’t work at night. All of the risk factors are of course amplified by the breakdown of their immune defences under the weight of their despair and boredom.

Alize undoubtedly suffered. Urinary tract stone disease can be exceptionally painful, alongside the violent renal colic that it provokes.

It is strange however, that this is the cause of death, just when his kidney problem was being correctly treated. What could have happened? As is often the case in other dolphinariums, Alize’s condition must have suddenly got worse due to a bacterial infection. The SeaWorld captive orca, Tilikum, is suffering from this. Having been fed antibiotics all of his life, an antibiotic resistant bacteria is wreaking havoc, generating concerns for his health.

Last year, Eclair died at the age of 26 from prostate cancer.

Mila, his daughter, died at the age of 9 from a gastric obstruction after eating plant matter. Previously, the orca Valentin died from a twisted intestine and his mother from a heart attack! These types of endings are not very common in the ocean, where causes of death are more likely to be old age, getting caught in a net, being mutilated by a boat, falling victim to an epidemic or major pollution rather than dying by swallowing seaweed soaked in chlorine! But these risks haven’t really stopped the species Tursiops truncates from doing pretty well and from abundantly populating the warm seas of the world. In contrast, it is troubling to note that three young captive dolphins have just died in the last three months, when they were all born in a pool surrounded by carers and vets, protected from any danger, pollution or lack of food. Despite this, no Marineland dolphin has ever reached old age (60 years) or even the average age (40 years) of wild dolphins, as established by the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).

Why?

Because large migratory marine species, bestowed with a keen intellect and a rich social life, can never blossom in these aquatic cells. Captivity is fundamentally toxic for cetaceans and this is why One Voice demands their immediate abolition on all of the French territory.

Please help us and sign our petition!

Sources

• http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3797464
• http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/exotic_and_labor…
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16475528

Sharky & Lotty, the elder captives

Sharky & Lotty, the elder captives
07.05.2016
Antibes
Sharky & Lotty, the elder captives
Exploitation for shows

A dolphins memory is equal to that of an elephant. If we could speak with Sharky and Lotty, they could tell us all the difficulties they had survived in the tiny enclosures, journeys by plane, the farewells and the grieving. They would also speak of their childhood. But the dophinariums don’t want their dolphins to talk. So we are telling their story for them.

Lotty is the eldest of the Marineland dolphins. Captured in Florida in June 1983, she lived ten years in Great Britain, before being sent to Sweden, then finishing her journey in Antibes, in 2005. Sharky had the same fate. Captured in October 1983, also in Florida, she survived the English doplhinariums as well, and, it would seem, the flooding that submerged Marineland on the 5th of October 2015.

Childhood in Charlotte Harbour

The Charlotte Harbour estuary, to the South West of Florida, is a dolphin’s paradise, they have been living there for centuries. The fresh water of two rivers mixes with the salty water of the Golf of Mexico generating big marine plains thriving with shellfish and fish. The dolphin clans group themselves into small marine ‘villages’, scattered around the network of islets and lagoons. The water is calm, warm and shallow, journeys are just visits between neighbours, life is calm, and time stands still. Lotty and Sharky lived there when they were small. They played chase between the mangroves scaring the waders perched on the shores by squirting water at them, and should have grown up in their sub tropical mangroves and become mothers and grandmothers. But the doplhinariums took this destiny away from them, and have devastated their population. Since the beginning of the 1960’s and for more than thirty years, persistent raids have taken children away from their families, broken up tribes and weakened the populations exposing them to epidemics. Today the free dolphins of Charlotte Harbour are protected. They are slowly bouncing back from this wave of captures, but Sharky and Lotty did not escape.

Fair at Flamingo land

The senseless explosion of dozens of small dolphinariums started in Great Britain with Flamingo Land. Opened in 1961, this establishment was the first to exhibit living dolphins in a happy fair atmosphere. They didn’t survive a long time and were consecutively imported from Florida. In 1984, Flamingo Land received its three last dolphins. They would stay there until the closure of the park in 1993. Meanwhile, a civil battle triumphed.. Following relentless campaigning, the English dolphinariums had to conform to rules so strict that they all closed, without exception.

Rocky, Missie and Silver were rehabilitated in the Caribbean, welcomed by Jojo, the lone dolphin. After having been held respectively 20, 22 and 15 years, the three dolphins successfully rediscovered their freedom. But the public’s generosity did not reach far enough to finance re-homing all the captive dolphins in the sea. For the last three prisoners of Flamingo Land, the nightmare continued. They were sent to the North of Europe.

From Sweden to Antibes

Open in 1969, the Kolmarden dolphinarium was the first to be built in a Scandinavian country. Right from the beginning, a mass of Florida dolphins were stranded here, torn away from their luminous mangroves for a death in a dark pool. Lotty and Sharky managed to survive in the Swedish park, with Lotty even giving birth to Fenix there. In 2005, Lotty and Sharky were transported to Marineland with Fenix. Far from enjoying the scorching sun, the youngster couldn’t cope with the park’s environment and died four years later, at only eight years of age.

In 2011 Sharky gave birth to Jo, her one and only child. Today, the two friends always swim side by side, having spent 33 years of their life in captivity. Could they still go back to the small islands of their childhood, in the Charlotte Bay estuary? Without doubt, following a well managed rehabilitation programme. It all depends on the dolphin and its desire to live. And our two friends have this desire. Lotty and Sharky have been hunting fish together since they were three. They haven’t been seperated since their capture, and it is their strong friendship that has allowed them to survive.

If they can’t be released, these dolphins deserve at least to be placed in a marine bay with their family. It is urgent, Lotty and Sharky will soon be 37 years old. In Marineland, Antibes, no dolphin has lived beyond 38 years of age…