After lifetime of captivity, orca dies at 32
Freya, an orca whale at the Marineland aquarium in France, recently passed away after spending almost her entire life in captivity.
The orca was one year old when she was captured off the coast of Iceland in 1982, and spent over 32 years at the amusement park, located on the country’s southern shore. During her time at Marineland, Freya became the matriarch of the park’s collection of orcas and gave birth to a number of calves.
The aquarium announced the sad news via its Facebook page on Saturday.
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Freya had been ill for quite some time, according to the post, and Marineland says it intends to look into the exact cause of death. While orcas can live to be between 50-100 years in the wild, Freya was only 32 when she passed away.
Recently, she was also featured in Beneath The Surface, a memoir by former SeaWorld trainer and Blackfish interviewee John Hargrove. NPR posted an excerpt from the book, which details a scary incident between Freya and Hargrove.
Despite the recent controversies surrounding captive orcas, Marineland didn’t shy away from defending the aquarium’s “conservation mission’’ in its Facebook post.
Severe local weather through the years
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