Young female orca Morgan was betrayed by the people who were meant to help her and is languishing in captivity at the vile Loro Parque marine park in Tenerife, Spain. After suffering there for more than eight years, she gave birth to her first calf in 2018, who has since passed away.
On 23 June 2010, Morgan was found emaciated in the Wadden Sea off the coast of the Netherlands. The Dolfinarium in Harderwijk, the Netherlands, captured her and transported her to its facility under a permit that specifically provided for her recovery, with the purpose of her subsequent release. She recovered at the dolphinarium in just a few months.
During this time, a group of experts – the Free Morgan Foundation – compared Morgan’s unique calls to those of other orcas in the region and found that she most likely belonged to an orca population in the Norwegian Sea. The foundation developed a detailed plan for her rehabilitation, with the intent of reintroducing her to her pod.
But she never was released back into nature. Instead, she was shipped off to Loro Parque, a marine park that has connections to notorious orca abuser SeaWorld.
Morgan is still kept in a small concrete tank at Loro Parque alongside orcas obtained from SeaWorld. These intelligent animals are denied everything that’s natural and important to them and are forced to perform for tourists.
Time and time again, experts have identified health problems and psychological distress in the orcas at Loro Parque. Some of them are missing their teeth. Some have painful rake marks all over their bodies or mucus dripping from their eyes. They float on the surface of the water, depressed and listless, exhibiting behaviour unheard of among free-living orcas.
Even though, according to the Free Morgan Foundation, laws prohibit using Morgan for breeding, Loro Parque did just that – newborn calves attract larger numbers of visitors, thereby boosting the park’s profits. Like Morgan, her baby Ula was housed in a prison-like tank filled with chemically treated water and was almost certainly forced to perform tricks for human entertainment. In August 2021 – not even three years after her birth – Ula died at Loro Parque.
Speak out for Morgan! Send a message to the Spanish government to let it know that you want to see her transferred to a coastal sanctuary.