Morgan the Captive Orca Just Gave Birth in Loro Parque … Here’s Why This Is Heartbreaking

In 2010, employees from Dolfinarium Harderwijk theme park in the Netherlands spotted a young female orca swimming by herself off the Dutch coast. Upon closer inspection, they noticed that the whale was extremely malnourished and capitalized on the opportunity to “help” her.

Under a “rescue, rehabilitation and release” permit, the theme park captured the adolescent whale, whom they named Morgan, and they brought her to their dolphinarium, pledging that she would be released back into the wild once she had been nursed back to health.

Sadly, things didn’t go as promised; for a long and painful 18 months, Morgan was forced to learn tricks so that she could perform for humans. And whenever she wasn’t contorting her body into unnatural positions on command in a swimming pool, the poor orca was confined to a tiny tank that hardly allowed her to move around or exhibit her innate whale behaviors.

In 2011 came the next step in Morgan’s life of suffering and exploitation. Once she had successfully been trained to do tricks, she was transported to Loro Parque, a marine park in Tenerife. Now, nearly a decade later, Morgan is still being held prisoner at this facility along with five other orcas.

The sweet whale, who is now 11 years old, recently gave birth to a calf at Loro Parque. While this would ordinarily be an event worth celebrating if Morgan and her baby were in the wild, it’s unfortunate news given that this innocent calf has been born into a life that will mirror his mother’s — one of confinement, loneliness, and endless hours of performing for tourists at the marine park.

Heartbreakingly, this little calf will likely never get the chance to experience swimming in open waters or doing any of the other things that these beautiful, intelligent creatures were meant to do. After all, odds are the baby whale will never be a candidate for release into the wild because it has mixed genes.

Plus, Morgan was brought into captivity before she had the opportunity to learn how to be a mother. Doomed to a totally unnatural life at Loro Parque, this baby whale will need to be hand-reared by staff instead of her real mother, a process which resulted in another calf dying at the park in the past.

This vicious cycle of holding wild animals in captivity to generate profits is deeply tragic and has prompted selfless individuals to start the Free Morgan Foundation in hopes of breaking it. If you would like to help give Morgan and her newborn calf a chance at freedom (or at least a humane life in a sanctuary), we encourage you to donate to this amazing nonprofit organization.

For more ways to Support this important cause and join in the fight against whale exploitation, click here. And please, share the many reasons why we should never Support captive marine parks with everyone in your network.

Image Source: Free Morgan Foundation