Astérix
PARK
Astérix
PARK
Asterix basin is filled with filtered, heated, salted and chlorinated water, in order to avoid skin infections.
Total surface of the basins (main basin, hospital basin and isolation basin) is 1044,5 square meters for a volume of 3 million 400
000 liters.
The length of the external basin is 45 meters for a width of 17,5 meters.
The depth is 4,5 meters at the "deepest" places (!) and 2,5 meters elsewhere.
The temperature of water is of 12°C minimum in winter and 26°C the summer.
The thickness of the subquatic window panes is 3 centimetres : it is a real acoustic problem for the
dolphins.
Asterix Park delphinarium is able to receive an audience of 2000 people but it's not rare 3000 are gathering there during one week end.
On June 18, 1988, three Tursiops dolphins were imported from Cuba to France "for educational and scientific purposes".
Guama, Amaya and Pichi are joined 6 months later by Elisabeth, Laura and Beila.
These last dolphins came also from Cuba, without having been "tamed" or "broken" or "trained" before. They arrived completely "wild" !
A first baby was born successfully on July 28, 1993: Athéna.
Elizabeth and Breila both died in June 1993 just at the time they arrived at the end of their pregnancy.
"Worried" to fill the empty places left by the deaths of Elizabeth and Breila, the Park imported on November 20, 1994, two more dolphins from Germany:
Cindy and Beauty, two 17 years old females Tursiops truncatus.
The arrival is discrete, far from the media. Theses two females had spent 14 years in the tiny underground basin of "Holiday Parc" of Hassloch.
In April 1995, Cindy and Beauty performed the shows. The same month,
Laura died : she had become too fat and depressed.
Captured in Texas and probably born in 1971, Cindy died on her turn in May 2001, of "old age" according to the
Park... She was only thirty years old.
Situation in July 2002
On July 2002, Astérix Park owns 9 Tursiops
truncatus dolphins :
There are 3 males and 6 females :
Males :
1. Guama is the dominated male and probably - following the trainers,- the father of Thais, because he spent much time with the newly captive-born
mother, Athena. Guama would have been born in 1982. He was captured near Cuba and arrived at the Park on June 18, 1988.
2. Pichi is the dominant male of the basin and the father of all the other captive born dolphins.
Born in 1982, he arrived at the Park on June 18, 1988, after having been captured in Cuba, alongside with Guama.
Nevertheless, the two males are often fighting against each other. The trainers claimed that he is NOT the father of Thais.
And it's surely better like that, because otherwise, Pichi would be the father and the grand father in the same time, Athena being
his daughter.
3. Péos is the last captive born baby of Amaya and Pichi still alive. He was born one month before Baïly, on June 23, 1999.
Females :
1. Beauty is the largest dolphin of the basin. She would have been born in 1975 in the Gulf of Mexico where she was caught. She arrived at Astérix Park on November 13, 1994, after having survived 14 years in a German delphinarium of Hassloch, where her basin was still smaller than Asterix one.
2. Baïly is the girl of Beauty. She was born on July 25, 1999 at the Astérix Park.
3. Amaya is the dominant female. Born in 1982, she was captured in Cuba too and arrived the same day as Pichi and Guama.
4. Aya is smallest dolphin of the basin. She was born with at Park on July 4, 1996, from Amaya and Pichi.
5. Athena was born at the Park on July 28, 1993. She is the mother of Thais.
6. Thais is the new-born baby of Athena and, we hope, Guama.
To
know more about Asterix Park
Captivity condtions in
PARC ASTERIX
A 1997 report of M. Julien Marchal
Les
dauphins du parc Asterix (official propaganda)