Sharkane

Sharkane was a 23 year old female Icelandic killer whale who lived at Marineland Antibes. She died on the 3rd of January, 2009, and Europe's most successful breeding female killer whale.

The Last Capture

In October of 1989, the last groups of orcas was captured off of Iceland before the hunters were banned from capturing again in their waters. Ran was caught on the 22nd and Yamato was taken on the day before. On the 29th of October, two females, Ai and Sharkane, were the last killer whales to be captured in Iceland. They were all soon moved to the Hafnarfjörður Aquarium, also in Iceland. Sharkane was sexed a female and put up for sale.

A well known video was taken during their time at Hafnarfjordur. One of capturers took the video, and it features all of them vocaling repeatedly. He was later interviewed by CNN, where the whales are shown.

Onto France

The two oldest orcas, Sharkane and Yamato, were later transferred to Marineland Antibes in France. Here, they met Freya and Kim II. Because SeaWorld was able to start a breeding program, Marineland took an interest to it. Later, in 1990, Freya was confirmed pregnant with her first calf. Unfortunately, the calf was a stillbirth. In efforts to actually have a live calf, Marineland tried breeding Sharkane with their male, Kim 2. Soon on, she was confirmed to be pregnant with her first calf and was due around February of 1993.

Breeding Begins

On the 25th of February, 1993, Sharkane gave birth to the first successfully orca calf to be born in Europe. The calf was a female and was named Shouka. Despite how young Sharkane was when she was captured, she took great care of her calf and was a loving mother. Although Marineland was now a successful breeding park, Yamato was shipped to a facility in Japan in 1995, and later died there in 2000. Luckily for the park, Freya gave birth to her 3rd and only surviving calf, a male later to be named Valentin in February of 1996. 3 years later, Marineland celebrated yet again another February birthday. On the 23rd of February, 1999, Sharkane gave birth to her only male, Inouk. 2 years later, she gave birth to her last calf, a female named Wikie. All calves were sired by the park's bull male, Kim II.

In 2002, Shouka was shipped to Six Flags Worlds of Adventure in Ohio, USA, due to the fact that her and her father had a very strong bond. Marineland was afraid that the two would have a inbred and non-surviving calf, much like Freya's history. In 2005, Kim 2 passed away. After this, artificial insemination(A.I.) was introduced to Sharkane and Wikie in efforts to get them pregnant. Unfortunately, Sharkane passed away on the 3rd of January, 2009. Her necropsy revealed that she died of Bacillus Pyocyanique. Despite of all of Marineland's treatment and antibiotics, it would of been hard to fully cure her, and unfortunately resulted in her death.

Although Sharkane never got pregnant through A.I. in time, Wikie later gave birth to her first calf, a male named Moana. Ironically, Shouka has been living with Moana's father, Ulises, at SeaWorld San Diego. After getting aggressive from being alone at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in 2012, Shouka was shipped to SeaWorld in the following year. In 2013, Wikie gave birth to her second calf, a inbred male named Keijo. His father, Valentin, is also his uncle through Wikie, because both half siblings were sired by Kim 2. In 2015, Valentin and Freya both passed away, only 3 months apart from each other. It is also believed that Wikie was pregnant via AI again, however the pregnancy was never confirmed as it's believed she lost the calf in a flash flood in October of 2015(which lead to the death of Valentin). If she was pregnant, the sire has been rumored to be Tilikum. Moana died 8 years later in October of 2023.

Legacy

Sharkane was great at waterworks and never got aggressive towards trainers, in or out of the water. She did great in shows and was very active. Until Shouka was born, she was a dominant orca, but Freya always took the role of being Marineland's matriarch. After Freya's death, Wikie took over the role, carrying her mother's dominance. Sharkane was noticed commonly by her dorsal, which had a slight bend/collapse to her right. To this day, Sharkane's legacy lives on, currently being Europe's most successful breeding female. All of her calves and one of her grandchildren are alive to this day.

Gallery

If you are going to use any of these photos, please credit the photographer and/or the provider. PLEASE REFER BACK TO THIS WIKI. NOT ALL PHOTOS CAN BE USED!!

Many photos can be found from Inherently Wild.

Photo provided by rm20.

Photos by Marineland Antibes.

Photo by Marineland Antibes, provided by Valentin666.

Photo by Valérie Meyer.