New Aquarium, Same Life for Japan’s Oldest Captive Orca

Dolphin Project and Japanese environmental organization Life Investigation Agency (LIA) can confirm that Stella, the oldest captive orca in Japan was transferred to Kobe Suma Sea World (formerly Kobe Suma Seaside Park) on March 29th of this year. The aquarium, located in Kobe, the capital city of Hyogo Prefecture has been closed and under construction since 2021, however is set to reopen in June.

Owned by Japanese hotel group GRANVISTA Hotels & Resorts, Kobe Suma Sea World has been branded as “An Edutainment Aquarium to ‘Connect’”.* It’s hard to comprehend how using a highly sentient mammal with a complex social and familial structure to perform for paying audiences can be considered anything other than exploitation.
*Source: Kobe Suma Sea World website

Stella was once wild and free, but has spent decades languishing in concrete tanks

Stella at Kobe Suma Sea World, Japan. Credit: LIA/Dolphin Project

Stella is a wild-caught orca, captured off the coast of Iceland in October 1987. It is believed she was only about a year old when captured. One month later, she was transferred from a holding tank in Iceland to Hafnarfjörður Aquarium, located in the same country. Her next stop was Kamogawa Sea World in Japan, where she was held from March 1988 until December 2011. Stella was transferred yet again to Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium in Japan, where she remained from December 2011 until her latest transfer to Kobe Suma Sea World.

For 37 years, Stella has been held in captivity, transferred to five different facilities, and given birth to five female calves — Lovey (born 1998), Lara (born 2001), Sara (born 2003 and died 2006), Ran II (born 2006) and Rin (born 2012). She is also the grandmother of Earth (male, born 2008) and Luna (female, born 2012), both born to Lovey.

There are a total of seven captive orcas in Japan, all from Stella’s lineage, spread across three facilities: Kobe Suma Sea World, Kamogawa Sea World (also owned by GRANVISTA Hotels & Resorts) and Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium. With Kobe Suma Sea World’s commitment to captive breeding, more orcas may be forced to live out their lives in concrete tanks. How can confining an orca to a manmade enclosure be considered educational? Living in a structure, devoid of any semblance of a natural environment and prevented from behaving in natural and instinctive ways isnt learning about the mammal. It’s witnessing how this mammal survives. Or doesn’t.

Stella at Kobe Suma Sea World, Japan. Credit: LIA/Dolphin Project

Says Ren Yabuki, Director of Life Investigation Agency, “Amidst the world moving away from keeping wild animals in captivity, with more countries banning dolphin shows, Japan is bucking the trend and even expanding its approach in exploiting wild animals.”

Currently, Stella is in a small tank at Kobe Suma Sea World, along with her daughter, Ran II. LIA volunteers observed Stella spending a long time just floating in the water. She also repeatedly swam to the wall, backed up, and swam to the wall again, a stereotypical behavior often observed among captive marine mammals in zoos and aquariums. There is nothing for Stella to do, other than be used for human “edutainment” as one of the aquarium’s main attractions.

Featured image: Stella in her tank at Kobe Suma Sea World, credit: LIA/Dolphin Project