An orca that has lived in a Miami aquarium for 50 years may be brought back to the Pacific after Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay felt sorry for her.
Lolita the Orca, also known as Tokitae, was captured off the coast of Washington in 1970. She’s spent most of her life at the Miami Seaquarium, but that could change now.
Seaquarium, non-profit organization Friends of Lolita and Irsay announced at a news conference Tuesday that they hope to bring Lolita back to her home waters.
“I think she will be very happy to be back and it will be therapeutic for her as opposed to the misconception that it will be stressful,” Orca Network’s Howard Garrett told KOMO News.
Not only will the orca be released into the Pacific to fend for itself, but will initially be housed in a larger enclosure off Orcas Island that will have clean, deep water where it can hear other orcas in the area.
Lolita the orca (pictured in 2014) may return to Washington’s Puget Sound after decades in captivity
Lolita the Orca, also known as Tokitae, was caught off the coast of Washington in 1970 (pictured). She has lived most of her life at the Miami Seaquarium
‘I suppose if she hears them. She’ll answer right away, so she’ll call right back,” said Garrett, who has been campaigning for Lolita’s return to Puget Sound since the 1980s. “It’ll be so exciting when she comes back.”
Previous proposals required NOAA to approve Lolita’s move across the country, but it’s unclear if the agency did so. It is also unclear how the animal will be transported back to the Pacific.
Washington’s Lummi Nation, a Native American tribe, traveled to Miami in 2018 to leave behind a nearly 4,000-pound totem pole as part of efforts to bring the orca back to Washington. According to CBC, it’s part of an $8.5 million effort to bring Lolita home.
The Seaquarium, the nonprofit Friends of Lolita and Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay announced at a news conference Tuesday that they hope to bring Lolita back to her home waters
Isray did not detail how they plan to move the orca if the plans are approved
Jewell James, a member of the tribe, accused the Seaquarium of abandoning the animal’s monetary needs, forcing her to perform in front of audiences a few times a day, saying keeping her in the 20-foot tank is like keeping her in one to keep prison cell .
“She’s our relative and we want her back,” he said.
However, a British-Colombian mammalian expert is unsure if removing Lolita from the aquarium is best for Lolita.
“I think that could be a very cruel and inhumane act,” Andrew Trites, director of the University of BC’s marine mammal research unit, told CBC. “Lolita is not a young whale.
“She’s a senior and I’m really worried about … the ethics. She’s had constant company with humans, with white-sided dolphins, and she’s not fit to come out of here.’
Lolita performed for decades before stopping last year due to illness. At 56 years old, she is the longest living whale in captivity
Lolita is not simply thrown back into the Pacific when she is released, but first in a large tank filled with fresh deep water to help her with rehabilitation
However, critics are certain that moving the ancient whale will be a death sentence (Lolita, right, and Hugo, left, 1979)
However, the Seaquarium said it has no plans to release the whale, which has been laboring for more than 20 years, due to her age and the possibility she could be exposed to deadly pathogens and diseases.
At 56 years old, Lolita is the oldest whale in captivity. On average, captive whales only live to be about 45 years old. Wild orcas can live up to 80 years.
She stopped playing last year after falling ill.
“They should really be ashamed, they don’t care about Lolita, they don’t care about her best interests, they don’t really care if she lives or dies,” accused Robert Rose, who works at Seaquarium Lummi-Nation.
In the early 2000s, a whale named Keiko was released back into the ocean but died a year later after failing to re-adapt to other whales even after re-establishing itself in its natural habitat.
Capturing orcas was legal in the 1970s, but after a series of protests against hunters working to capture orcas from their mothers, Washington outlawed the practice.