Animals. At Marineland in Antibes, a video of a sexually stimulated killer whale causes controversy.

Marineland in Antibes, in the Alpes-Maritimes region, closed its doors in early January . However, two orcas - Wikie, 24, and his son Keijo, 11 - still live in the park's pools, awaiting a permanent solution to accommodate them , such as a marine sanctuary.

Regularly suspected of mistreating its orcas, even since its closure , Marineland is now facing new accusations. A video published on August 15 by TideBreakers, an NGO opposed to the captivity of cetaceans, shows what appears to be the sexual stimulation of an orca, Keijo, in the park's pool.

On social media, TideBreakers accused Marineland of using this practice to then sell Keijo's sperm. "The keepers are sexually stimulating him, probably to collect his sperm for artificial insemination," the NGO denounced.

Asked about these images by Paris Match , Muriel Arnal, president of the animal rights NGO One Voice, speculates that the animal's sperm could then be resold in Japan. There, "it sells for a high price to inseminate the six remaining orcas and supply zoos in China," she believes.

The management of Marineland Antibes defended itself to several media outlets, notably assuring Le Figaro that this was stimulation aimed at regulating Keijo's "strong sexual urges" and "to avoid inbreeding with his mother and the possibility of them fighting and hurting each other." The management maintains that the act "is natural and completely painless for the animals."

"A lie," in the words of Muriel Arnal on X. "Wikie lived with her brother and two sons without mating" for several years, she argued, calling on the Minister of Ecological Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, to "stop this massacre."

The images have shocked internet users and have rekindled the debate about the future of Marineland's last two orcas, for whom no relocation solution has yet been found.