Kiska ‘Loneliest Whale in the World’ dies at Marineland
People across Canada and internationally were grief-stricken today over the news of a death in Niagara Falls.
They’re mourning the loss the killer whale named Kiska.
She died at Marineland this week where she was kept for much of her life.
She’d become known as the “Loneliest Whale in the World.”
Kiska was the only killer whale left at Marineland and the last Orca kept in captivity in Canada after new laws were brought in against capturing whales.
Marineland says she died “peacefully” this week at the age of 47 and the cause of death hasn’t been determined.
Animal rights activists say they’re sad and outraged over Kiska’s story.
She was captured in the Atlantic at about the age of three and kept at Marineland for more than 40 years , the last 12 years by herself.
Orcas in the wild live in close family groups with a need to be together, while video of Kiska showed her swimming alone in her pool.
Former Marineland Employee Philip Demers says her condition was deteriorating.
“When you relate to her level of solitary confinement and her mental suffering, she justified self harm as a means to remind herself that she was alive. She was deteriorating mentally, emotionally and physically and all of that just culminated into just an awful, awful, awful existence.”
Kiska was captured off Iceland along with Kieko, the Orca made famous in the Free Willy movie in the 1990s.
Keiko was eventually returned to the wild.
Activists were hoping to take Keiko back to the ocean as well.
They were hoping Kiska would be the first whale released into a new whale sanctuary planned for the Nova Scotia coast.
They’re still hoping the sanctuary will become a home for the remaining beluga whales and dolphins at Marineland now that Kiska has gone.
