Heartbreaking timelapse video shows ‘world’s loneliest orca’ staring motionless at the gate of his tank ‘for 24 hours straight’ at Argentinian aquarium
Heartbreaking footage shows a captive orca staring almost motionless at the aquarium gate for 24 hours.
Kshamenk, a 35-year-old orca, is held in a small tank at Mundo Marino, Argentina’s largest aquarium.
Shocked visitors accuse the park of keeping the orcas in “cramped conditions with limited movement and total isolation from their peers.”
A 24-hour timelapse filmed by activist group UrgentSeas on August 12 shows Kshamenk lying motionless, his face turned directly toward the enclosure gate, as if asking to be let out.
Kshamenk was first brought to Mundo Marino in 1992 after being captured at Samborombón Bay on the coast of Buenos Aires.
Kshamenk, a 35-year-old orca, is held in a small tank at Mundo Marino, Argentina’s largest aquarium
Kshamenk was first brought to Mundo Marino (pictured) in 1992 after being captured at Samborombón Bay on the coast of Buenos Aires
According to the aquarium, the then three-year-old orca was washed up in the bay by three fishermen, along with three other orcas.
Kshamenk was then moved to his concrete tank in the aquarium, where he has spent the past 32 years.
His tank mate Belen died in 2000 at the age of 13. He has reportedly spent the past 24 years in complete isolation from his own kind.
UrgentSeas, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending marine captivity, is campaigning to free Kshamenk and place him in an open sanctuary with other orcas so he can socialize.
He is now the last captive orca in Argentina.
A spokesperson for the organization said: “We continue to work with Argentine activists and members of Congress to highlight and address his brutal world.
‘He must be taken out of his little concrete box and join other members of his kind before it is too late.’
MailOnline has asked Mundo Marino for comment.