Completely, utterly, alone.  Kiska is the last remaining captive orca in Canada.  She is imprisoned for life at the Marineland Canada facility in Niagara Falls.  Not only does she have no contact with others of her kind, she holds the awful distinction of being the only orca in the world kept in complete physical and social isolation from any other cetacean.  Yes, this is happening, right now, in Canada.

For orcas in the wild, the most natural thing in the world is to have family members swimming by your side.  Kiska knew this life for her first few years in Iceland, until she was stolen from her pod in 1979.  She has not known a day of freedom since.  For the last 7 years, she has not even known a day of companionship with another orca.  The facts of her case are troubling, to say the least, and that this is taking place in our backyard is disconcerting to anyone paying attention.

So what are the applicable laws in Canada?  Can it really be the case that she has no legal protection against such an impoverished and wasted life?  One would think that, unless we are a nation where apathy reigns supreme among our population, there has to be some kind of legislative framework available to bring a bit of justice, fairness and compassionate consideration into this picture.  So where do we stand, legally?

Canada passed Bill S-203, Ending the Captivity of Whales and Dolphins Act, in 2019.   Thanks to this legislation there will be no more facilities of this kind built in Canada, ever!  Marineland will be the last.  And when the 40+ remaining belugas, 5 bottlenose dolphins, and one lone orca are gone, that will be the end of this tragic chapter in Canadian history.  These whales were ‘grandfathered’ under the legislation, so in essence Marineland has been granted the last ever license anyone in the country will ever hold to profit from exploitation of this kind, and to traffic in this type of misery and cruelty.

So let’s think about this for a moment.  Kiska is the lone orca kept at Marineland Canada’s Niagara Falls facility.  She is completely isolated from others of her kind.  Her kind being among the most social animals that have ever existed on Earth.  For most species of cetaceans, family (the pod) is everything.  This is certainly true for orcas, whose behaviour in the wild, and even their brain physiology, suggests an extraordinary level of social intelligence. She is not the only victim here, with nearly 50 others consigned to a life of captivity, but her case is the worst so far.  Precisely because she is alone.  

Kindness and compassion would suggest she be moved to a sea pen or sanctuary to live out her days, with room to move in a natural environment, and preferably in the company of other orcas.  But there is nothing in Bill S203 that compels Marineland – the people who think they ‘own’ her – to do so.  She is at their mercy, as far as our new law prohibiting cetacean captivity goes.

To add a little insult to injury, because Kiska no longer performs for the public, Marineland officials have stated publicly that she “spends her golden years doing what she wants.”  They have the audacity to equate a lifetime of forced service to a career of work leading to a well-earned retirement.  Even worse is the implication that any orca on Earth would voluntarily choose a life of swimming around a featureless tank all alone, waiting to be fed scraps of dead fish by humans.  Kiska’s problem is that she is still considered a valuable commodity, is still on display, and thus is still earning profits for her captors.  They intend to squeeze every last penny they can out of her, and don’t intend to let her go.  Again, having been ‘grandfathered’ under S-203, she is completely at their mercy.

But hold on a minute!  We do have laws against animal cruelty.  How does THIS not qualify?  Consider the circumstances.  The institution that holds her captive has a long history of fending off allegations of animal abuse and neglect.  Former trainers have frequently come forward to describe unsanitary conditions and a poor level of care.  Kiska’s pool, unsurprisingly, is reported to be filthy.  Her teeth have been worn down and flattened from years of chewing on concrete sections of her tank in response to stress and boredom.   She has experienced the loss of all five of the children born to her during her nearly four decades at Marineland.  None survived more than a few years, even though orcas in the wild can live 60 – 90 years.

What we know about orcas makes it certain that for Kiska these losses meant successive experiences of profound grieving.  Her life today can only be described as one of unending despair, without the support that having others of kind would likely provide.  Her days are spent staring into the blank, featureless interior of her tank, without the prospect of anything better, or even different, ever coming along.  If not swimming in slow circles, she will spend her time floating in place, staring off at nothing – something never observed in orcas in the wild.  We know from video footage and eyewitness accounts that her behavior is what’s been described by the Whale Sanctuary Project as “repetitive, unmotivated and lethargic”. Not what I would call her ‘golden years’.  

How is this not animal cruelty under the laws of the Province of Ontario?  I would go much further and state that this is cruelty that rises to the level of a violation of her rights as a person, but Canada is nowhere near that right now, although passage of the recently introduced Jane Goodall Bill would take us a big step in the right direction.  So far only a small number of countries have even considered the question of personhood rights for nonhuman animals (India was the first to grant them to dolphins, in 2013).  But that aside, even just taking into account our existing legal framework, how is this treatment of Kiska by Marineland legal?  

A recent development might mean that some kind of positive change may be coming.  The Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (OSPCA) informed the provincial government that it will no longer enforce animal cruelty laws.  Though they’ve exercised this mandate for the past century, they instead will switch to a support role in animal cruelty investigations, providing shelter services, evidence collection and veterinary services.  They’ve recommended that the province implement a model similar to that used in New York, where the NYPD has a well-funded animal cruelty squad that leads investigations, with the assistance of similar support services provided by the American SPCA.

A 2016 report found that the present system in Ontario hasn’t been working well because “the majority of OSPCA officers were poorly paid, worked in the field alone often facing dangerous circumstances, and were responsible for extremely large geographic regions”.  Among the benefits expected to accrue from having government take the leadership role in animal welfare law enforcement are a more robust system with greater transparency and accountability.  

Animal welfare groups believe that the ground has now been laid for the government to restructure the system so as to improve protections for animals within the province.  The bad news is that, so far, real leadership from the public sector has been lacking, with “no plan in place, and no public announcements, there’s been little to no communication with stakeholders”. 

Nevertheless, we remain hopeful that more clarity is coming on the government’s future direction.  Effective animal welfare enforcement is needed now, and should become a higher priority for government than it has been up until now.  For Kiska, we truly hope the wait won’t be much longer.  The conditions imposed on her today are unjust and indefensible.  The Government of Ontario should do the right thing and intervene on her behalf.  Anything less is unconscionable, and for those of us who can only advocate on her behalf, it’s continuation is heartbreaking to watch.  

For The Orca’s Voice, 

Dani, Canadian Cetacean Alliance