Netherlands killer whale going to aquarium

A young killer whale rescued off the Netherlands last year will be moved to a Canary Islands amusement park, the Dutch government says.

This is because the orca may not be able to feed itself and returning it to its family group would be hard.  

The female whale was rescued in a weak state after straying from its pod into Dutch coastal waters in June 2010 and was taken to the marine park Dolfinarium and named Morgan, making a strong recovery and becoming a popular attraction.      

Animal rights activists took the government to court to try to get the whale returned to the wild, saying there was a good chance its family could be traced through sound recordings.     

But Henk Bleker, Dutch minister for agriculture and foreign trade, said a review, requested by the court, showed sending the whale to Tenerife’s Loro Parque was the least bad option.     

The Orca Coalition, which blocked Morgan’s transfer in July, said it would to stop the move with a new lawsuit and warned that there were risks in moving the four-year-old whale to the park where it may not mingle well with the other orcas.     

There were no immediate plans to transfer the whale to Tenerife, Delfinarium spokesman Bert van Plateringen said, but preparations were underway and it would be moved in a small tank of water by truck and by plane.     

“When she arrives at the park in Tenerife she will be put in a tank of her own and after 12 hours she will join the other orcas. Then she will swim in 22 million litres of water as opposed to 400 000 litres of water here,” van Plateringen said.     

Killer whales, the largest and most intelligent members of the dolphin family, live in tight-knit pods that can travel 75 miles a day in search of prey.      

‘Free Willy’, the 1993 Warner Brothers blockbuster about an orca whose life is in danger, starred killer whale Keiko, whose home was an amusement park in Mexico City.     

Following the film’s success, fans forced Keiko’s move to a larger tank in Oregon and the whale’s 2002 release into the ocean. But Keiko continued to seek human contact and after a year died of pneumonia.