Kiska, an orca known as the “world’s loneliest whale” has died at Marineland in Ontario, Canada. Kiska has spent over 40 years in captivity and was the last remaining captive killer whale in Canada.
Since her capture in 1979 with Keiko, the whale made famous by “Free Willy”, she has been trapped in a concrete cage. Since 2011, in the last twelve years of her life, she was alone and completely isolated in a bare tank. In 2021, footage of her self-destructive behavior — repeatedly bashing her head against the walls of the tank — became public, sparking widespread outrage.
In 2019, Canada passed bill S-203, which banned the catching and breeding of all cetaceans for captivity. However, whales that were already in captivity were excluded from the protection that is offered, which meant that it was too late for Kiska.
Orcas are extremely social animals that live in tight-knit pods, hunting and communication with each other. Knowing of Kiska’s life of continued isolation, from the departure of her tankmate and the death of all her calves, made it even more heartbreaking.
After their paired capture in 1979, Keiko and Kisha lived together in Marineland. Keiko was later sold to a Mexican entertainment park, where he was rehabiliated and released into Icelandic waters in 2002, but died only a year after in a bay in Norway. Kiska stayed at Marineland and gave birth to five calves, none of which survived. Her last tankmate was Ikaika, the son of Tilikum, a male orca who killed three people and featured in the 2013 documentary “Blackfish. In 2011, Ikaika was flown to California’s SeaWorld, and Kiska began her long period of isolation until her death in March of 2023.
Animal rights activists have long protested against Marineland. The park has been accused of negleting the animals kept in captivity: Since January 2020, Ontario’s Provincial Animal Welfare Services has inspected Marineland 160 times, according to The Guardian.
Animal Justice is calling on th Ontario government to release the results of Kiska’s postmortem results, and other activists are pushing for the remaining animals, cindluing belugas, dolphins, and more, at Marineland to be removed.
There is already a global trend to ban keeping cetaceans in captivity, which means that we can most likely expect that there will be no more marine mammals captured, bred, or imprisoned for entertianment purposes in the future.
However, there are recent reports of baby dolphins being bred in places where marine mammals are exhibited in Taiwan, who, born in captivity, may never get to leave the artificial pools and tanks. The best way to discourage the industry from continuing to reproduce may be to boycott those places with cetacean performances.
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