Heart-breaking moment ‘world’s loneliest orca’ Kiska swims round in circles and bangs head in ‘torturous’ tiny tank

A KILLER whale who lived with the star of the Free Willy movie has been filmed swimming around in circles in a tiny tank at an amusement park.

Animal activist Phil Demers, 44, claimed the orca called Kiska has been there for the last 12 years.

Phil said the orca was captured in the North Atlantic Ocean in 1979 when she was only three years old.

She was first taken to an aquarium in Iceland where she lived with four other young orcas, including Keiko - who starred in Free Willy.

Shortly afterwards, Kiska was sold, along with Keiko, to MarineLand, Phil explained.

Kiska gave birth to five calves at the park, but all of them tragically died at a young age, he claimed.

After spending over a decade completely alone at MarineLand, a video of Kiska banging her head against her tank went viral.

Phil, who co-founded the NGO UrgentSeas, recently posted another video of distressed Kiska on their TikTok page - racking up 6.7 million views.

"Kiska has been completely alone since 2011, which is tantamount to torture for social beings such as orcas," he said.

"The video was taken on February 19 this year. The footage was taken from a drone above the park.

"This video demonstrates her loneliness and suffering."

Phil said watching her health deteriorate over the last 10 years has been "gut wrenching".

He continued: "During my time at MarineLand between March 2000 and May 2012, I worked with an array of marine mammals, including seals, sea lions, walruses, dolphins, and beluga and orca whales."

Phil ran into trouble with the park when he launched his "Save Smooshi" campaign to re-home a beloved walrus he worked with.

MarineLand filed a £1.2million lawsuit against Phil for trespassing and planning to kidnap the 800lb walrus in 2012.

Phil filed a counterclaim for defamation and abuse of process.

Following lengthy negotiations, both parties agreed to drop the legal action and re-house Smooshi and her calf Koyuk to a new location.

"MarineLand sued me for millions back in 2012 for my animal abuse allegations, but I successfully defended their decade of legal assaults to manage to negotiate the release of my walruses," Phil said.

“My hope with our advocacy campaign is to highlight the plight of individual whales with the aspiration of retiring dolphins and whales back to the ocean and ending their senseless captivity.

"We shouldn’t accept animal suffering nor should we remain quiet about it."

TikTok users were left outraged over Kiska's plight following the release of the viral clip.

One said: "It hurts so much, I’m crying this orca don't deserve this. He/she should be at his/her family in the ocean, where they should be.”

Another wrote: "People say don’t let her go because she’s been captive but her soul would be more free dying in the ocean [than] that tank…"

A third commented: "They’re working on a sale of MarineLand and hopefully a move for Kiska to the sanctuary in Nova Scotia."

Someone else remarked: "It would be less cruel to let her go wild and see what happens rather than watch her die alone in this bathtub."

Free Willy star Keiko died of pneumonia in 2003 in a bay in Norway, aged 27.

A spokesperson for MarineLand said a bill in Ontario has made it illegal to bring another Orca in to keep Kiska company - and Kiska is too old to be moved.

They said: "Animal rights groups in Ontario sponsored a bill in 2013 that was passed into law that has made it illegal under Ontario law to bring another Orca into Ontario, even temporarily under strict conditions as a companion for Kiska, and Kiska is too old to be safely moved."

Years ago, another Orca killed himself after suffering from depression in captivity.

Hugo the killer whale suffered a brain aneurysm after repeatedly ramming against the edge of his enclosure.

Instances such as this are often cited by animal rights activists as proof whales should not be kept at sea parks.