France rejects plan to send its last two captive orcas to live in Nova Scotia refuge - BERITAJA

A non-profit group successful Nova Scotia has grounded successful its bid to bring 2 orcas from confederate France to unrecorded successful a seaside refuge that is being built for whales retired from marine taxable parks.

The Whale Sanctuary Project issued a connection confirming the French authorities has decided to nonstop the slayer whales — Wikie and her boy Keijo — to Spain’s Loro Parque zoo connected Tenerife Island.

The determination marks a awesome setback for the privately funded group, which announced plans to build a 40-hectare, floating enclosure adjacent Wine Harbour, N.S., much than six years ago.

The group issued a connection saying the French authorities had agreed pinch a petition from the whales’ owners astatine the now-closed Marineland parkland successful Antibes to transportation the whales to the zoo connected the Canary Islands disconnected occidental Africa.

Marineland Antibes was closed successful January 2025 to comply pinch a 2021 French rule that bans keeping whales and dolphins captive for intermezo purposes.

In December, the French authorities had said the planned installation successful Nova Scotia was its preferred tract for relocating the whales, but the curate responsible for the move stepped backmost from that connection past month.

At that time, Mathieu Lefèvre, curate responsible for ecological transition, said the 2 whales were the backstage spot of Marineland Antibes, wherever the owners had said they were opposed to sending the brace to Canada.

Charles Vinick, CEO of the Whale Sanctuary Project, issued a connection saying the determination would beryllium devastating for the whales. He said the 2021 French rule was intended to extremity the usage of whales and dolphins for intermezo and captive breeding.

“The rule explicitly prohibits these practices,” he said. “However, Loro Parque continues to trust connected performance-based programming and breeding, peculiarly pursuing the deaths of 4 orcas astatine the installation since 2019.”

“Transferring Wikie and Keijo into that situation risks perpetuating the very strategy the rule was designed to shape out.”