Animal rights group TideBreakers has released footage showing trainers at the closed Marineland Antibes in France manually stimulating an 11-year-old male orca named Keijo. The video, taken from above, shows two trainers standing by the pool edge as Keijo lies upside down, with one trainer holding his flipper while the other stimulates him.
Marineland managers defended the practice, stating it is done to prevent Keijo from breeding with his 24-year-old mother, Wikie, and to avoid fighting between them. They claim the stimulation is 'natural and totally painless' and occurs about once a month, with the French ecology ministry informed.
However, former SeaWorld trainer Valerie Greene, now a TideBreakers member, disputed this, saying she had never seen such behaviour except for semen collection for artificial insemination. The facility closed in January ahead of a French law banning whales in marine parks, but a rehoming plan for the two orcas has yet to be agreed upon.
