Urgent transfer of orcas from Marineland to Loro Parque Tenerife

The French government is pushing for the two remaining orcas at the Marineland aquarium on the French Riviera, which closed in January, to be urgently transferred to Loro Parque in Tenerife. Officials say the situation has become critical.

Minister calls for swift action

“All the necessary authorisations are in place. It is now down to Marineland and the Spanish parks to reach an agreement so that a transfer can take place in the coming weeks,” said Mathieu Lefèvre, France’s deputy minister for ecological transition, in an interview published on Saturday by the newspaper Nice Matin.

Having advocated five months ago for sending the whales to a sanctuary in Canada, Lefèvre now argues that circumstances have changed and insists he will not “condemn them to a certain death”. “If nothing is done,” he warns, “given the state of the pools, they are doomed.” He stresses that all conditions for their transfer to Spain have therefore been prepared, “if a solution can be found for what is becoming an urgent situation”.

Marineland closure and the future of the orcas

The deputy minister is due to visit Antibes this Friday to meet with Marineland’s management. The park shut its doors at the start of January after more than half a century of operation, following a ban on cetacean shows in France that came into force in 2026. Visitor numbers had already been declining in recent years.

Marineland is owned by the Spanish group Parques Reunidos, which wants to repurpose the current site for other uses and has proposed moving the orcas to Loro Parque in Tenerife, which is run by a different operator.

Environmental groups push back

The environmental group Sea Shepherd has spoken out against the move to the Canary Islands and is instead advocating for the two cetaceans to be placed in semi-wild sanctuaries. However, Lefèvre has now ruled out that option, arguing that swift action is needed because the tanks in which the orcas are living could collapse, putting them at a risk he is not willing to take.

Source

Urgent transfer of orcas from Marineland to Loro Parque Tenerife