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A bid by a U.S.-based group to bring two captive killer whales from France to a proposed seaside refuge in Nova Scotia is facing fresh criticism from a well-known but polarizing anti-whaling campaigner.
Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, says he’s opposed to the Whale Sanctuary Project’s plans to place killer whales Wikie and Keijo in a huge, floating pen near Wine Harbour, N.S., before the end of this summer.
Watson took aim at the project during a statement delivered Monday to a meeting in Paris that brought together government officials and whale experts, as well as representatives from the Whale Sanctuary Project and Spain’s Loro Parque zoo on the Canary Islands.
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The French government is also considering sending the whales to the zoo on Spain’s Tenerife Island, a move supported by the whales’ owners at the shuttered Marineland Antibes park in the south of France.
Watson, now a director of Sea Shepherd France, told the committee that the Whale Sanctuary Project lacks funding, has an unrealistic timeline and is situated in a place that he says will be too cold for the two whales.
Among other things, Watson also says frequent storms and the accumulation of ice floes along Nova Scotia’s eastern coastline could present a threat to the project’s nets and other infrastructure.
A spokesperson for the Whale Sanctuary Project said the non-profit could not immediately comment on Watson’s claims.
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