Marineland

Marineland
Full name	Marineland Antibes
place	306 Avenue Mozart ; 06600 Antibes ; France
surface	26 hectares
opening	1970
Visitor numbers	1.2 million
organization
Sponsorship	Parques Reunidos
Member of	EAZA , EEP
	Orca demonstration at Marineland Antibes
	Marineland Antibes

43.615 7.1255555555556Coordinates: 43 ° 36 ′ 54 ″ N , 7 ° 7 ′ 32 ″ Ew1

Marineland Antibes on the Cote d'Azur in France is a marine theme park . It is intended to bring dolphins , sea lions , seals and other sea creatures closer to visitors in several demonstrations during the day. Since 1999, the park has been expanded in small steps in order to provide the animals with more species-appropriate enclosures . The park was bought by the Spanish park chain Parques Reunidos in 2006 for 75 million euros .

history

In 1969 the park acquired a female orca, later named Calypso. She died after a year after numerous demonstrations. Now pools for dolphin demonstrations have been built and expanded, and a pool for several orca whales has been built. Another female orca caught in 1970 died after three years after in vitro fertilization was unsuccessful. Dolphins, sea lions, seals and penguins were added and in 1976 a male orca (Kim), who after two years received an orca cow named Betty as a mate. A total of twelve orcas were kept. The four orcas currently kept in Marineland (2020) were all born there, the two youngest are already the third generation. Among the 11 bottlenose dolphins there are three old wild-caught from the 1980s and three offspring from other zoos.

In 1999 the new orca basin was built with a 4.60 meter high glass wall for underwater observation; the dolphins moved to the basin of the orcas. The orca basin measures 60 by 40 meters and is 9 to 10 meters deep. There have been eight births among the orcas and ten among the dolphins to date. The sea lions live there in the third generation, as do the penguins. Since 2005, visitors have had the opportunity to touch and feed dolphins under the supervision of a supervisor in a special pool. Another house presents historical events from France.

Each animal has its own individual supervisor or trainer. The water for the dolphins and orcas is pumped and filtered directly from the adjacent sea. As a result, the sea creatures have very clean, salty water. After two more orcas died in 2015, there are currently a total of four orcas in Marineland Antibes.