Lolita suffered injuries to her eye and jaw, the latter likely a result of fast swims and head-first dives, tricks the whale is too old to perform. Abnormal blood tests also showed Lolita's overall health and nutrition was poor and she suffered from inflammation.
ANTONIO FINS: After a quarter century of futility, advocates seeking the release of Lolita the Killer Whale have renewed fervor. The sources for that zeal include a prospective new leadership at the Miami Seaquarium, a tsunami of outrage over a damning federal government report about care of animals at the nearly 70-year-old aquarium and rising fears about the vulnerability of the property’s marine animals to a climate change-fueled super hurricane.
At the forefront is the Aug. 17 announcement that the Dolphin Company, based in Mexico, plans to take over the Seaquarium… “I was shocked because they emailed me back,” said Taylor Olivares, a Lolita advocate , when Dolphin Company officials wrote her in late August. Olivares said the company’s response to her email calling for Lolita’s release was “pretty basic” in saying it was not yet in charge of Seaquarium operations but that it would soon “explore the best options for Lolita” going forward…
Despite the Orca Network’s protests during the past 25 years, the effort to seek Lolita’s release is now largely led by the Lummi Native American tribe based in northwest Washington State just miles from the Canadian border, along with the Earth Law Center and the Whale Sanctuary Project. Lummi elder Raynell Morris declined to talk about the efforts to seek her release, while The Dolphin Company and Seaquarium did not respond to emails seeking comment. But others are saying plenty — and it’s unanimously outrage — about a report released early this month by the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
Rodriguez said Lolita suffered injuries to her eye and her jaw, the latter likely a result of fast swims and head-first dives — tricks Rodriguez said the whale was too old to perform. Abnormal blood tests showed Lolita’s overall health and nutrition was poor and she suffered from inflammation, according to Rodriguez’s findings. Rodriguez also said Lolita’s diet had been cut from 160 to 130 pounds of fish daily, causing her to lose body mass and putting her at risk for dehydration, since marine mammals get their needed fresh water from eating fish, while the marine park also wanted to reduce the salmon portion of her diet and supplement it with “guts and chunks.”
The Oct. 1 release of the report sparked blistering criticism of the South Florida marine park on social media. Marine researcher Naomi Rose, who is on the International Whaling Commission Scientific Committee, called the document “one of the worst inspection reports” she had ever seen on a U.S. marine mammal facility… The report was released by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a non-profit animal advocacy group that has been demanding Lolita’s release for a dozen years.
PETA now wants Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle to file charges against the Seaquarium, said Jared Goodman, vice president and deputy general counsel for the PETA Foundation. On Tuesday, they will ask Miami-Dade County commissioners to terminate the oceanarium’s lease on the Key Biscayne property. “Whether she could be moved would be a question for the experts after they conduct an evaluation of her health and behavior,” Goodman said. “But what we do know is she is suffering in this tank and has been for more than a half a century.”
Alejandro Ariel Dintino, who frequently protests outside the Seaquarim’s entrance on Rickenbacker Causeway in Key Biscayne, said this spring the goal is to reveal “Lolita’s condition.” Once that happens, he said, federal government regulators will have no choice but to revoke the park’s permit to keep her. Then, he said, the focus will shift to freeing her… Time is of the essence, not just because of Lolita’s age — she is believed to be 56 years old — but also because of the threat from a potential storm in an era of monster hurricanes. Rose said Lolita could be killed if one of the ever-strengthening hurricanes swept across the tiny swath of low-lying, waterfront land where Miami Seaquarium sits…
Ultimately, Lolita’s most ardent advocates want her repatriated to the Pacific Northwest… The Lummi have not released their plan, but Jeff Foster, a former orca catcher working with the tribe, said it will address questions and convince skeptics. In an interview this past spring, Foster said the groups were already looking at sites to at least temporarily hold Lolita. One possible location was on Orcas Island in the U.S. archipelago between Washington State and Canada’s Vancouver Island. Foster said the “robust plan” includes a detailed budget and an operational blueprint that has backing from unnamed researchers, pathologists, veterinarians and others. “We think we have a real good case to bring her home, and we can do it very responsibly and safely,” Foster said.
Foster said one reason the proposal is not public is due to the Seaquarium’s past opposition. “One thing that hasn’t changed is the attitude of these aquariums,” he said. “A lot of the aquariums out there that house these animals still justify keeping these highly intelligent animals when they know better”… As a 15-year-old, Foster was on crews that captured the last Puget Sound orcas, and then later worked with capture teams in Iceland and Norway. “I don’t know if it’s righting a wrong but it’s doing the right thing,” he said of his work to free Lolita now. SOURCE…
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