The whale Ulisses

Remember the whale Ulisses? Together with the gorilla Floquet de Neu (Snowflake), he was probably the most famous inhabitant of our zoo.

Actually his fame soared when someone told us that he had become too big for the aquarium and the zoo of Barcelona, and he had to be moved to another location to prevent him from suffering. It was the year 1994 and the transfer was thoroughly prepared; it was followed by thousands of people on huge screens and broadcasted live by TV3. Everything was settled to make sure he had a nice trip to Sea World in San Diego, California.

Well, what has happened to our most beloved killer whale after all this time? Now Ulisses is 30 years old and is a little chubby (he has gained around 1300 kilograms since then). He recently became the father of a little whale (150 kilograms at birth) called Moana and born after in vitro fertilization. It turns out that the poor Ulysses has not been able to meet his daughter, who was born in a French aquarium.

Something that seems to be certain is that Ulysses will never come back to Barcelona. The agreement that was signed with Sea World stated that he and half of his offspring would return to Barcelona. Of course that was signed when it was thought that at this stage we would have a marine zoo big enough to accommodate a killer whale, which currently does not seem to be happening in the near future.