Anti-whaling campaigner Paul Watson slams Nova Scotia's Whale Sanctuary Project

A bid by a U.S.-based group to bring two captive killer whales from France to a proposed seaside refuge in Nova Scotia is facing fresh criticism from a well-known but polarizing anti-whaling campaigner.

Paul Watson, 75-year-old founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, says he's opposed to the Whale Sanctuary Project's plans to place orcas Wikie and Keijo in a huge, floating pen near Wine Harbour, N.S., before the end of this summer.

"Transferring Keijo and Wikie to Nova Scotia risks their lives," Watson, who is originally from Toronto, said in a statement released Monday. "If they die prematurely in Canada, the French government will be held accountable."

Watson took aim at the project during a meeting in Paris that brought together a committee of government officials and whale experts, as well as representatives from the non-profit Whale Sanctuary Project and Spain's Loro Parque zoo on the Canary Islands.

The French government is also considering sending the whales to the zoo on Spain's Tenerife Island, a move supported by the whales' owners at the shuttered Marineland Antibes park in the south of France.

Watson, now a director of Sea Shepherd France, told the committee that the Whale Sanctuary Project lacks funding, has an unrealistic timeline and plans to build in a bay that he says will be too cold for the two whales, both of which were born in the French marine park on the Mediterranean Sea's north shore.

"Having grown up in the Canadian Maritimes, I can attest to the harshness of its winters," Watson said in his statement, referring to the fact that his family moved to southwestern New Brunswick when he was very young.

Those behind the Whale Sanctuary Project have argued the whales will get used to the colder weather because Wikie, Keijo's mother, is a descendant of Icelandic orcas.

As for the WSP's cash flow, project CEO Charles Vinick has said more private donors are expected to come forward now that the two whales are potential candidates for transfer. And he has insisted the summertime deadline is realistic.

Meanwhile, Watson says frequent storms and the accumulation of ice floes along Nova Scotia's eastern coastline could present a threat to the project's nets and other infrastructure. He also called attention to opposition from some adjacent landowners in Wine Harbour.

Vinick has said the WSP has conducted extensive studies showing the chosen bay, about a three-hour drive east of Halifax, is adequately sheltered from the North Atlantic.

Watson suggested the whales should be placed in a refuge on the Mediterranean coast. But nothing of that sort exists in that region or anywhere else in Europe.

"The project would be eligible for European Union funding, reducing reliance on uncertain private donations," Watson said, adding that Sea Shepherd France is prepared to commit more than $800,000 annually to support Keijo and Wikie's care at Marineland Antibes until a European sanctuary is built.

"This is not just about two orcas. It is about France's commitment to ethical leadership," Watson said. "The public demands a humane solution. And the science is clear: Nova Scotia is not safe for Keijo and Wikie."