Loro Parque
Keto, Kohana, Tekoa and Skyla
Loro Parque is the most recent park to start displaying Orcas. It is located in the Canary Islands in Spain. They currently house 6 Orcas, 2 males on loan from Seaworld Keto 16 , and Tekoa 11 and 2 females on loan from Seaworld Kohana 9, and Skyla 8. They also acquired a "rescued" young female named Morgan who they guess to be around 4 years old , they have a male baby Orca who was born in 2010 to Kohana named Ad'an and a baby girl orca named Vicky also born to Kohana in 2012.
It has been a concern of many people that there is no Adult female to lead the "pod." The oldest female they have is Kohana and she is only 9 now. She was 7 when she gave birth to her first calf . Having little or no expierience with mothering, she did not take to the calf and failed to nurse him. The trainers have been hand rearing him for the past year and a half. The father of Adan is said to be Keto who is actually her uncle. Kohana also gave birth in July 2012 this time to a female calf also fathered by her uncle Keto . This calf she also rejected and is being hand-reared by Loro Parque trainers
Their have been incidents incidents of aggression with 3 of the Orcas on loan from Seaworld Kohana being the only Orca without incident and that may partly be due to her limited trainer interaction due to her 2 pregnancies. In December 2009 one of the training sessions proved fatal. Trainer Alexis Martinez was having a training session with Keto who WAS cleared for water works when the Orca proceeded to slam the trainer to the bottom of the pool after 2 attempts to call Keto back to the stage he finally responded to a third call leaving the trainer at the bottom of the pool and coming up without him. The trainer had been under for about 30 seconds at this point. The other trainer who was on the stage then sounded the alarm. Keto then went back to the trainer who was on the bottom of the pool and resurfaced carrying him across his rostrum. It took nearly 3 minutes to get the other 3 Orcas secured into 1 pool in the back and get Keto into the other back pool. Once this was accomplished the other trainers dove to the bottom and recovered Martinez who was unresponsive with blood coming from his nose and mouth. The autopsy report states that it was a "violent death" including injuries such as cuts, bruises, the collapse of BOTH lungs, fractures of the ribs and sternum, a lacerated liver, severe damage to the vital organs and puncture marks "consistent with the teeth of an Orca." It states the immediate cause of death as drowning but that the fundemental was "mechanical asphyxiation due to compression and crushing of the thoratic abdomen with injuries to the vital organs.
Another serious issue with Loro Parque that has come up recently is the treatment of Tekoa by the other orcas there. He is a male and while males do tend to be sub-dominant anyways, he is sub-dominant in the extreme. His body is riddled with scars from rakings by his tankmates. It has been said that a Seaworld trainer who was supervising at Loro Parque wrote to Seaworld about Tekoa's situation and nothing was done.
Here is a link to Suzanne Allee's report on Loro Parque: http://www.scribd.com/doc/64076641/Suzanne-Allee-Loro-Parque-Report