Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

PROTESTS

In Images: Tenerife protesters call for marine theme park to ’empty the tanks’ 

Several weeks after huge anti-mass tourism protests on the Spanish island of Tenerife, environmentalists have targeted one of the island’s main tourist attractions - the Loro Parque zoo and marine park - which is owned by a German millionaire.

Published: 13 May 2024 13:13 CEST
In Images: Tenerife protesters call for marine theme park to 'empty the tanks' 
Dozens of people hold placards and protest outside the gates of Loro Parque Zoo in Puerto de la Cruz on the Spanish Canary island of Tenerife on May 11, 2024, during a demonstration as part of a worldwide initiative under the slogan "Empty the Tanks" demanding that orcas, dolphins, and all cetaceans held captive in parks be released back to the wild. (Photo by DESIREE MARTIN / AFP)

Dozens of protesters gathered at the gates of Loro Parque in the touristy town of Puerto de La Cruz on Saturday, shouting “stop animal exploitation”. 

Loro Parque is one of the top tourist attractions in Tenerife, starting off as a parrot sanctuary in 1972 but evolving into a zoo and SeaWorld-style marine complex which receives several million visitors a year. 

The owner of Loro Parque is 87-year-old German national Wolfgang Kiessling, the wealthiest man in Tenerife with an estimated net worth of €370 million.

Loro Parque’s owner Wolfgang Kiessling is the 169th wealthiest person in Spain. (Photo by DESIREE MARTIN / AFP)

Loro Park gained international notoriety after the release of the 2013 documentary Blackfish, which looked at the treatment of killer whales in captivity, and which partly focused on the death of an orca trainer in 2009 at Tenerife’s Loro Parque after being attacked by one of the animals. 

Protesters carried signs that read “no to animal abuse”, “those born to swim in oceans should not do so in tears” and “don’t lie to your child, there is no happiness in slavery”. 

There are currently four orcas at Tenerife’s Loro Parque. (Photo by DESIREE MARTIN / AFP)

The rally promoted by environmentalist group ‘Empty the tanks’ was held in 60 cities around the world on Saturday to demand the release of dolphins and orcas.

Protesters booed the Loro Parque train that took holidaymakers as it approached the facilities while showing them banners that read “tourist, what you pay is for slaughtered orcas” or “this shit at Loro Park is going to end” are other signs that were carried.

A half empty Loro Parque train faces the wrath of protesters calling for the park’s orcas to be released. (Photo by DESIREE MARTIN / AFP)

In late April, Kiessling released a controversial video in which he attacked environmentalists, stating: “They want us to live like vegans, not to have pets, not to use leather bags or shoes, and they also want to influence our holidays so that we do not visit zoos”.

He added: “A new industry has been born. They call themselves environmentalists, but they are not. They are just people in search of wealth. They want to change our world, live vegan, not wear wool, not drink milk, not ride horses, not have pets, not visit zoos”.

The Loro Parque has received large subsidies from the Canary government and benefited from tax incentives that allows them to pay taxes on only 10 percent of the profits. 

Billboards and dustbins across the island have promotional posters of Loro Parque on them, describing it as “the must-see of the Canaries”. 

A sign reads “Is suffering educational?” at another “Empty the Tanks” protest held outside Loro Parque in 2015. (Photo by DESIREE MARTIN / AFP)

The animal rights protest against Loro Parque comes just four weeks after thousands of canarios took to the streets of their eight islands to call for an end to mass tourism.

READ ALSO: ‘The island can’t take it anymore’: Why Tenerife is rejecting mass tourism

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

CANARY ISLANDS

FACT CHECK: No sharks have ever killed people in Spain’s Canary Islands

The death of a German tourist after being attacked by a shark has been covered in national and international media as having occurred in waters near the Canary Islands. However, the truth is very different.

Published: 18 September 2024 13:24 CEST
FACT CHECK: No sharks have ever killed people in Spain's Canary Islands

Social media has been awash with the news of a German tourist who died after being attacked by a shark off Spain’s Canary Islands, an incident reported by the local coastguard on Tuesday September 17th.

The 30-year-old woman lost a leg in the attack and then suffered a heart attack while on a Spanish rescue helicopter, dying before reaching the hospital in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria where was being taken to.

Although the news is tragic, in most cases the shark attack is being wrongly reported as having occurred “off the Canary Islands”, a cause for alarm for the millions of international tourists who visit the sunny archipelago every year, as well as for the Canaries’ approximately two million inhabitants.

Examples of English-language media wrongly reporting that the fatal shark attack on a German tourist took place in Canary Islands waters. Screenshot: Google

In fact, the woman was sailing in a catamaran more than 500 kilometres south of the Canary Islands when the attack happened.

That, by anyone’s estimates, does not constitute ‘off the Canary Islands’. 

The incident took place much closer to the coastal cities of Dakhla and Bir Gandouz, which are part of the disputed territory of Western Sahara that is currently occupied/governed by Morocco.

Most people have never heard of these cities, and when the aim of media outlets is to generate clicks rather than report more accurately, opting for the well-known Canary Islands in the headline is what generates more attention. 

To give you an idea of how much 500 kilometres is, the distance between Madrid in central Spain and Málaga on Spain’s southern Costa del Sol is 534 km, a distance which takes over five hours by car to cover. 

The Canaries are indeed close to both Western Sahara and Morocco, with around 100 kilometres separating the easterly island of Fuerteventura from the Moroccan city of Tarfaya.

Furthermore, there are bodies of water south of the Canaries that are disputed between Spain and Morocco, but the shark attack on the German tourist did not take place in one of these, rather in what’s called a Moroccan Exclusive Economic Zone.

Therefore it would be far more accurate to say that the shark attack happened off Western Sahara or Morocco, depending on one’s political affiliations.

Do shark attacks actually happen in Spain’s Canary Islands?

Since international records began around the year 1500, there have been 3,349 shark attacks around the world. 

Of these shark attacks, only thirteen of them have occurred in Spain and just seven were recorded in waters around the Canary Islands.

This is according to data from the International Shark Attack File of Florida’s Museum of Natural History, run by the University of Florida.

Their data shows that four shark attacks took place in waters around Gran Canaria, one in Tenerife, another in Fuerteventura, and the seventh has no exact location specified.

While it is of interest that all of these shark attacks in waters around the Atlantic archipelago took place between 2004 and 2019, none of them have been fatal. There have been shark sightings in the Canaries in 2024, but no attacks.

Therefore, it is inaccurate to say that this latest deadly shark attack, or any other, has ever taken place in Canary Island waters.

There has only been one recorded fatal shark attack in Spanish waters, which according to records occurred in 1902 in the Balearic Islands.

READ MORE: Which sharks are found in Spain and are they at all dangerous?

SHOW COMMENTS