John Holer, Marineland’s owner, found himself on a beach in a physical fight with a sea lion one spring day in 1963.

Jeff, a 2-year-old, 100-pound sea lion fought for his freedom, sinking his teeth into Holer’s bicep. But Holer and a friend overpowered the animal, threw him in the back seat of a car and returned to what was then Marine Wonderland.

Jeff had been on the lam for three days before a 12-year-old boy spotted him basking on a beach in Niagara-on-the-Lake, 15 kilometres from his exhibit. After squirming under a fence at the one-acre marine park, shimmying his way to the nearby Upper Niagara River and barrelling over the falls, Jeff, Holer’s first star attraction, frolicked, fished and revelled in his freedom.

Holer’s latest star, Ikaika, a 9-year-old killer whale, won’t be swimming in Marineland’s waters much longer after the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld a lower court ruling Wednesday and awarded custody to SeaWorld, his original owner.

Holer has led a controversial life in the 50 years since founding the park, but though it has been his life's work, Holer doesn't want to talk about Marineland. He initially declined an interview with the Star, then agreed, then declined again.

Holer, born in 1935 as Ivan Holerjem in Maribor, Slovenia, then part of Yugoslavia, went to technical school for wine chemistry and considered working at his father’s vineyard.

But the industry came under communist control after World War II, so Holer went to work at a winery in Graz, Austria, before finding more rewarding work at Circus Krona, where he learned to train bears and sea lions.

“I had pet rabbits and squirrels as a child and always had a close feeling for animals,” Holer told the Star in 1983. He read much about Canada and decided to emigrate, landing in the Niagara region, but a job with Brights Wines fell through because of his poor English.

“I saw that a vast number of visitors were coming to Niagara Falls, and there was very little for them to do besides the actual falls,” he said in 1983 of his time in the region in the late 1950s.

So he started a circus. In 1961, Holer welded two large steel tanks together on a one-acre plot on the current site of Marineland. He brought in three sea lions and charged one quarter for admission and another to feed the animals.

August Busch III, the former CEO of Anheuser-Busch, which owned SeaWorld, has nothing but praise for Holer, to whom he traded Ikaika and two sea lions in 2006 for four beluga whales.

“He’s an entrepreneur, he’s a workaholic and he’s got a great operation up there,” Busch, 74, recently told the Star. “He’s a great fella, I like him — he’s very open and candid in his conversation.”

But there is nothing but silence from those who know Holer best, including Tracy Stewart, his right hand and the day-to-day manager of Marineland.

“I won’t talk unless John says I can talk,” Stewart said. Numerous other employees also declined to discuss their boss.

Over the years, Holer, now 76, bought up more land — he now has 1,000 acres — and added more animals, bringing controversy with both acts.

He has clashed with locals over the Green Oaks trailer park, across the street from Marineland, which he bought in 2004. Five years later, Holer sent out eviction notices to 47 families, with the intention of using the land for maintenance facilities.

The residents took the eviction to the Landlord and Tenant Board, which ordered them to be off the property by March 31, 2010.

Some time that day, Paula Millard, who said she had nowhere to go, pulled a bag over her head, filled it with helium and died. Fellow park resident Brian Topolinsky was devastated by Millard’s suicide, but continued the fight.

“Holer has the right to do what he wanted with the land,” Topolinsky said. “But if he was a decent man, he would have given five years’ eviction notice and not allow 20 more families to start renting during that time. But, of course, I can’t prove that.”

On May 4, the Landlord and Tenant Board ordered Holer to pay Topolinsky and four other families $11,000.

“John Holer drove through the mobile home park several times a day, every day, after February 2009 for the purpose of annoying and harassing the tenants, thereby substantially interfering with the tenants’ reasonable enjoyment of the premises,” the board said.

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Then there were the animal incidents. In 1977, the U.S. Department of Fisheries seized six bottlenose dolphins Holer caught in the Gulf of Mexico and after a beluga whale died in 1999, Holer received arson threats via an Internet chatline.

There were animal escapes — a bear cub ran off for days before returning and buffalo once roamed a nearby highway — and on one occasion, four bears mauled a fifth to death in front of horrified visitors.

Keiko, star of the 1993 hit Free Willy who died on a Norwegian beach after he was released into the wild, began his public performance career at Marineland in the early 1980s before Holer sold him to a Mexican aquarium in 1985.

And then there are the protesters. Much of modern day animal activism has its roots in the fight to abolish parks like Marineland and SeaWorld.

Alumni of the movement include Ric O’Barry, a dolphin advocate who starred in The Cove, a documentary about the Japanese dolphin slaughter, who demonstrated at the park in the 1990s.

“I’d love to protest Marineland again,” O’Barry said. “Marineland should be abolished — all the marine parks are the same — they are a form of bad education.”

Activists had a run-in with Holer just last weekend.

“Get off my property or I will run you over,” Holer told Dylan Powell, from Marineland Animal Defense, who hands out anti-animal captivity leaflets to the park’s visitors. The two were arguing over Holer’s attempt to erect a sign that reads: “Protesters ahead, please do not stop.”

“John is intimidating,” Powell said. “He utters threats and takes our protests on a very personal level.”

Marineland has never released details on the deaths of its animals, but Zoocheck Canada has kept an unofficial count and says 16 killer whales and 10 belugas have died at the park over the years. Several former employees, who didn’t want their names used, said there is a massive grave on the compound where whales are buried.

There could be more digging if Holer’s grand vision for the park materializes. For about a decade, he has been planning the world’s largest aquarium, which will include sharks, freshwater fish, a living ocean reef and an interactive dolphin habitat.

lcasey@thestar.ca

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