This morning, Sunday 14 December 2025, Kshamenk, the last orca in captivity in Argentina and all of South America, died. The animal suffered a cardiorespiratory arrest around 7 am in the Mundo Marino park in San Clemente del Tuyú, where it had been locked up for many years.
His was a life of loneliness and suffering. Born free in the ocean, Kshamenk swam with his family until he was about 4 years old. In February 1992 he was captured in the Bahía de Samborombón and taken to Mundo Marino, where for years he shared the tank with another orca, Belén. But when Belén died in 2000, Kshamenk was left completely alone.
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25 years in total isolation
For over two decades, this 6-meter, 3,600-kg male orca lived in total isolation, deprived of what is essential for orcas: social contact. Orcas are extremely social animals that live in complex matrilineal communities. The forced solitude had a devastating impact on Kshamenk.
Aerial images captured by drones from animal rights organizations such as PETA and UrgentSeas in recent years showed a heartbreaking reality: an orca forced to swim in endless circles in a tiny tank, exposed to the scorching sun, without stimuli, without companions, without life.
A battle for freedom
Over the years, activists, animal rights organizations and citizens have fought for Kshamenk’s release. Petitions were launched, demonstrations were organised, and bills were presented to the Argentine Congress. The request was always the same: to transfer the orca to a marine sanctuary where it could live in more dignified conditions.
Mundo Marino has always maintained that Kshamenk could not be released because he was too dependent on human care. But activists have always contested this version, underlining how the animal’s living conditions were cruel and how it was possible to offer it a better alternative.
A death foretold
The most recent videos showed an increasingly lethargic orca, swimming with difficulty, which seemed to have lost all vital energy. Activists had long feared that his condition was worsening. Kshamenk was around 35-36 years old, an age that might seem advanced but represents just half the life expectancy of a wild male orca.
Today Kshamenk is no longer here. He passed away in that same tank where he spent over three decades, away from the ocean, away from his family, away from the freedom he had known as a child.
His death leaves a void, but also a question: how much longer will we have to wait before cetacean captivity becomes just a bad memory of the past?
RIP Kshamenk. The forgotten orca that no one will forget.
Let’s free Kshamenk, the loneliest orca in the world: 32 years of imprisonment in a tiny tank
