By Karla Munguia Colmenero
Karla Munguía Colmenero is an environmentalist and wildlife filmmaker. For three years she worked as camera operator and editor for Animal Planeta in South Africa and has collaborated in two projects for National Geographic. For the last 12 years she’s been Ambassador for the documentary “Keiko, the Untold Story of the Star of Free Willy”, bringing awareness about captivity to children in Mexican schools. Learn more about Karla at https://karlamunguia.com/en/
For the many years that I’ve been advocating for freedom for all animals, this is the first time in my life that I see a human being going through the same routine that dolphins, orcas, sea lions, belugas and many more animals who are being used and abused by this industry go through. So, I wanted to know what inspired Alberto Lorente.
Alberto is used to pushing his limits. As a professional swimmer he’s already gotten two Guinness Records: one for the longest swim blindfolded and the second for the longest swim against current.
This time, he was determined to swim for 24 hours in the same direction in a small pool that he found on a beautiful cliff outside Barcelona, right next to the ocean.
“Spain is the country with the most cetaceans in captivity in all Europe, and I wanted to feel the pain that they feel”, Alberto told me.
And he did. After 4 hours he started feeling nauseous. Two hours later, he had to quit.
Watch the video to see Alberto swimming and his follow up interview with Karla.