Kiska The “World’s Loneliest Orca” Dies At Marineland

After spending more than a decade in isolation, Kiska the “world’s loneliest orca” has passed away.

Kiska has been cruelly held at Marineland in Ontario, Canada for years, and many animal rights activists and organizations have been trying to free her.

A fight to free Kiska has been ongoing for decades, but she gained a lot of attention back in 2021 when a video of her banging her head against the wall went viral.

Further videos were shared that featured Kiska the orca all alone in her enclosure that broke hearts of people around the world.

According to World Animal Protection, Kiska was stolen from her pod off the coast of Iceland back in 1979. Since then, she became known as the world’s loneliest orca, but efforts made to free her went in vain.

Kiska was left in total isolation since 2011 and, considering that orcas are highly social animals, her living conditions were beyond inhumane. Yet, Marineland refused to move her to a more suitable habitat.

While many people hoped to see Kiska freed eventually, where she could enjoy her last years in peace, that possibility was sadly taken from her when she passed away at Marineland – still in isolation.

According to CBC, a spokesperson for the solicitor general says Marineland told the province that Kiska died on Thursday, March 9, 2023.

World Animal Protection cites a bacterial infection as a the cause of her death, though she’d been displaying troubling behavior for years prior.

While Kiska’s story ended in tragedy, there’s hope for other marine wildlife as Canada banned places like Marineland from holding whales, along with dolphins and porpoises, in captivity. Kiska was the last captive whale in Canada.