Lolita/Tokitae at the Miami Seaquarium. Photo by @cetabaker on Instagram, reposted from Inherently Wild (https://inherentlywild.co.uk/lolitas-gallery/).
This is an update to my article about Lolita/Tokitae at the Miami Seaquarium, which is in one of the saddest captive orca situations. This orca is the star attraction at the Miami Seaquarium and so the facility has a vested interest in keeping her onsite. She has been the lone orca for over 50 years, living in a tank so small it violates federal regulations. Now poor inspections and revelations about neglect in her care have made new headlines.
“It is Lolita, more than any other captive orca, who offers the potential to answer the big question that hovered around the Blackfish debate: Why not return wild-born orcas to their native waters and pods?” – David Neiwert1
Veterinarian Ignored
In June 2021, a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspection of the Miami Seaquarium found that it was providing low-quality animal care. The 17-page report outlined many problems and health risks to Lolita/Tokitae. The report noted that veterinary recommendations from the park’s own veterinary team were repeatedly ignored: “The facility’s attending veterinarian’s recommendations regarding the provision of adequate veterinary care and other aspects of animal care and use have been repeatedly disregarded or dismissed over the last year…Failure to allow appropriate veterinary authority poses a risk to the health and welfare of the animals.”2The primary veterinarian who made the ignored recommendations was fired in the same month as the USDA inspection.
One of the problems included that Lolita/Tokitae and other marine mammals were fed rotten fish for 8 days, even though the veterinarian and others objected. The orca developed inflammation in her bloodwork within a week. The marine amusement park had also cut her daily food allowance down significantly. Since orcas rely on fish not just for food but also for their water intake, Lolita/Tokitae could become severely dehydrated.
Other veterinary recommendations the park ignored included those about performance at her age, her diet, and even injuries. “After Lolita had injured her lower jaw, [the veterinarian] specifically directed the staff not to request head-in entry jumps or fast swims from Lolita, now a geriatric whale. Yet, regardless of this directive, according to the report, the training manager incorporated extra head-in jumps to its routine and continued fast swims.”3
Worse, the report detailed many other issues. These included “critical” issues with the pools and enclosures for dolphins and seals, poor water quality, and inadequate shade for the animals (which causes skin and eye lesions). Dolphins had been injured and some had even died because incompatible animals were housed together.
“She injured her jaw because they were making her do things that she was just too old to do. And the vet told them not to make her do them anymore. And they ignored the vet.” -Dr. Naomi A. Rose4
Photo by Freebird on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Response from the Scientific Community
Many marine biologists, animal rights activists, and empathetic people, in general, find this report offensive. The poor USDA report elicited this response from Dr. Naomi A. Rose:
“What this outrageous report all boils down to is, the infractions were or will be corrected, at least long enough to pass muster at some follow-up inspection. And therefore it is dismayingly likely that, aside from a citation (which carries no fine), nothing will happen to [Miami Seaquarium]. They will suffer no penalty, they get to keep their APHIS license, no animals will be confiscated. And NOTHING WILL CHANGE. They are likely to be cited again in the future for similar infractions, because they know they will suffer no real consequences for cutting corners and being lax…It is now very clear that the law will NEVER protect Toki[tae]. I don’t know what will work, after all these years of so many people trying to help her, but at the very least, we need to spread the word of what has happened at [Miami Seaquarium]. Based on this inspection report alone, [Miami Seaquarium] is failing abysmally in its duty of care for this amazing being.“5
Park Sold Off to Another Company
Within two months of the poor inspection, Palace Entertainment, the current owner, sold the aquarium to the Dolphin Company. The timing is questionable. The Dolphin Company operates 32 parks and dolphin habitats in 8 countries including the United States, Italy, Mexico, and Argentina. They operate under different brands, including Dolphin Discovery, Dolphin Cove, Zoomarine, and Marineland (but not MarineLand Canada).
Both companies expect the final transitions to take place by the end of the year. The new company has promised to make improvements to the facilities and to allow authorities to make unannounced inspections. The director of Zoo Miami evaluated the Dolphin Company’s plans, including one specifically for Lolita’s care, and encouraged the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners to sign off on the deal.6
New Promises
The County Commission unanimously approved the transfer of ownership, as long as they “address” the issues in the USDA report. The Miami-Dade County Mayor proposed changes to the lease, which included requiring “compliance with the Animal Welfare Act, the maintenance of certifications by recognized organizations as the American Humane Association, and a commitment to seeking an accreditation with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.” The county will increase oversight of the Seaquarium and “will aggressively monitor the health and well-being of these animals under the leadership of The Dolphin Company,” the mayor said.7
Image by FrodeCJ from Pixabay
Skepticism
Not everyone believes that the Dolphin Company will fulfill its proposals. Ric O’Barry, the founder of The Dolphin Project, wrote: “Miami Seaquarium, the facility holding Lolita (Tokitae) the long-term captive orca, is being sold to Mexico’s The Dolphin Company (aka: The Dolphin Abusement Company) for an undisclosed amount…The company has no plans to make major changes to the park and will continue to use Lolita as [the] main attraction.”8
Miami Seaquarium protester Thomas Copeland is also skeptical. He doubts that the new owner will be able to make significant improvements to Lolita/Tokiate’s situation, simply because her tank is too small. He said, “At its deepest point on that angle, it’s 20-feet deep…she’s 22 feet long. The simple math tells you that the animal is too big for this tank.”9 Unless the Dolphin Company plans to expand the entire whale tank, Lolita/Tokitae will continue to live in too small of a space. However, the Miami Seaquarium has not been able to expand, as the Village of Key Biscayne has denied previous requests for permission to expand. There is very little land in this area and the town tries to control business expansion and control traffic problems.10
Lolita/Tokitae at the Miami Seaquarium. Photo by @cetabaker on Instagram, reposted from Inherently Wild (https://inherentlywild.co.uk/lolitas-gallery/).
The Lummi Nation
As with many captive orcas, Lolita/Tokitae cannot just be released into the ocean because she’s lived in captivity for so long. She may not be able to hunt fish or merge into her old pod seamlessly. So the Lummi Nation, the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest, is working with several organizations to safely relocate her back to her home waters under their care. The Lummi Nation views the orca as a relative and a member of their tribe. “They believe their treaty rights were violated when she was taken from her family in Puget Sound” in 1970. Squil-Le-He-Le Raynell Morris of the Lummi Nation said, “Under our inherent rights, she’s a relative. We have a right to call her home.” The Lummi Nation call Lolita/Tokitae Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut, which means “nice day, pretty colors.”11
“She’s done. Her spirit is crying to come home. Let her go. Let her come home.” -Squil-Le-He-Le Raynell Morris, Lummi Nation12
Taking Lolita/Tokitae Home
The goal is to return Lolita/Tokitae to the Salish Sea where she was born. It is where her family, the L pod of the Southern Resident orcas, still reside. With guidance from marine biologists and other experts at the Whale Sanctuary Project, the Lummi Nation will provide her care while she lives out her life in a custom-built sea pen, in her natural environment. “As part of our Whale Aid work, the Whale Sanctuary Project has drafted a comprehensive operational plan to safely bring Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut to a secure and protected area within the Salish Sea where she can thrive in her natal waters while receiving ongoing human care and while prioritizing the wellbeing of the Salish Sea ecosystem and all its inhabitants, including the Southern Resident orcas.”13
The plan is comprehensive and supported by the Whale Sanctuary Project, the Orca Network,14 the Earth Law Center,15 and Sacred Sea.16 There are many who argue against her release, but there are even more who argue for her retirement and relinquishment from the Miami Seaquarium.
Courtesy of Empty The Tanks. #50YearsOfStolenFreedom #Retire Lolita
Refusal to Relinquish Lolita/Tokitae
“I don’t want these hippies stealing my whale.” -Arthur Hertz former owner of the Miami Seaquarium, referring to animal rights activists in 199617
The main obstacle to this project is the Miami Seaquarium’s refusal to do what is best for the orca. They have repeatedly refused to relinquish Lolita/Tokitae. They argue that she is better off in its care despite well-documented evidence and eyewitness reports of neglect. In 2015, they said: “Moving Lolita in any way, whether to a new pool, a sea pen or to the open waters of the Pacific Northwest, would be an experiment. And it is a risk with her life that we are not willing to take. There is no scientific evidence that the 48-year-old post-reproductive Lolita could survive if she was returned to the ocean.”They refused to discuss all proposals of her sale or transfer to another park or aquarium, despite that her tank is way too small.18
In 2019, the Miami Seaquarium’s general manager wrote to the Seattle Times that the company had no interest in relinquishing her to another aquarium, marine amusement park, or sanctuary.19 Further, they have argued that she would not survive the long journey to the Pacific Northwest.
Lolita/Tokitae at the Miami Seaquarium. Photo by @cetabaker on Instagram, reposted from Inherently Wild (https://inherentlywild.co.uk/lolitas-gallery/).
What’s Next?
Most have speculated that The Dolphin Company will keep Lolita/Tokitae at the Miami Seaquarium. An activist told The Palm Beach Post that she emailed The Dolphin Company about Lolita/Tokitae’s release. They responded that they were not yet in charge of Seaquarium operations but that it would soon ‘explore the best options for Lolita’ in the near future. While the activist found hope in their response, I find this response to be the wording of typical corporate avoidance speak. Further, the company did not respond to emails from The Palm Beach Post about Lolita’s future.20 So we’ll see what they do. Meanwhile, activists are still protesting.
Lolita/Tokitae is not performing right now, because allegedly, the Miami Seaquarium’s whale stadium is temporarily closed for repairs.21 Hopefully she is being fed the right amounts of fish, receiving veterinary care, and swimming in clean water. If you want to advocate for this orca, please sign any of the pledges/petitions I’ve listed under Additional Resources below. Stay updated on news related to her situation. Share her story. Most importantly, don’t buy tickets to marine amusement parks! Thank you for reading, please share and subscribe!
Additional Resources:
Article, “Lolita: Fame and Misfortune,” The Whale Sanctuary Project, accessed November 21, 2021.
Page, “Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut: also known as Tokitae or Lolita,” sacredsea.org.
Book, A Puget Sound Orca in Captivity: The Fight To Bring Lolita Home, by Sandra Pollard, The History Press, Charleston, SC, 2019.
Article, “Dark waters, dark secret: Untold story of failed bid to free South Florida orca Lolita,” The Palm Beach Post, October 13, 2021.
Film, Lolita: Slave to Entertainment.
Pledge, “FREE LOLITA: Urge The Dolphin Company to Retire Lolita to a Seaside Sanctuary,” PETA.org.
Petition, “Lummi elders: “Free our Relative!” Save endangered orca held captive at Miami Seaquarium,” Change.org.
Petition, “Take the Pledge NOT to Buy a Ticket To a Dolphin Show,” The Dolphin Project.
Hugo and Lolita at the Miami Seaquarium in the early 1970s. Photo by my mother
In my last article, I explained a few of the issues with keeping orcas in captivity. Today I want to share the sad stories of two orcas held for decades at the Miami Seaquarium.
“It’s inherently hypocritical to keep a large-brained, gregarious, sonic animal in a concrete box. It needs to end.“-Ric O’Barry1
Postcard, Hugo, the Killer Whale, performing at Miami Seaquarium, circa 1968. From Florida Memory of the State Library and Archives of Florida, public domain.[efn_note]Postcard, Florida Memory, State Library and Archives of Florida, accessed January 29, 2021.[/efn_note]
Hugo, Miami Seaquarium
In 1968, whale herders captured Hugo at approximately age 3 near Puget Sound, Washington. The Miami Seaquarium purchased him but did not have an orca tank. He lived in an even smaller tank, the present-day manatee tank, for the first 2 years.
Small Tank
Ric O’Barry, founder of the Dolphin Project, worked at the Miami Seaquairum when they purchased Hugo. O’Barry objected to the tank’s tiny size. “When [Seaquarium manager Burton Clark] showed me Hugo, I shook my head in disbelief…’He’s longer than the tank is deep,'” he said. Hugo was thirteen feet long and the tank was only 12 feet deep. “He’s just a baby. He’ll grow twice this big. Leave him in here, Mr. Clark, and you’ll have the Humane Society down on your ears.” Clark said they were building a new tank and showed O’Barry the site. “I looked at it in dismay. ‘This is it?'”2 The current tank was completed in 1970. It is the one the park still uses today and is the smallest orca tank in use in the world.
Clark asked O’Barry to take care of Hugo and ‘keep him happy’ while the new tank was under construction. So O’Barry became Hugo’s caretaker, and though he was warned that killer whales were dangerous, O’Barry found that Hugo was a sensitive, intelligent creature and wasn’t scared of him. “‘Hugo!’ I said with a grin. ‘You’re nothing but a big, wonderful dolphin!” Hugo and O’Barry came to trust each other. “He allowed me to ride on his great back and, to amuse the tourists, I rode around on his back playing flute and guitar. Hugo loved music.”3
But O’Barry, wanting to protect Hugo and learn about orcas, struggled with the situation. “Hugo was eating 100 pounds of fish a day, and the bigger he got, the smaller his little whale bowl seemed. Nobody was more conscious of this than I, but every tourist who came through, thousands of them every day, pointed it out to me as if it were a great discovery.” The new tank construction had constant delays and slow progress. Even once completed, you can see how small it is since they haven’t expanded it. He was questioned by tourists about Hugo’s situation, and O’Barry in turn questioned his supervisors about it. But they were dismissive and nothing changed. “I left, this time for good,” O’Barry wrote about leaving the Miami Seaquarium.
“The [Miami] Seaquarium had sought to capitalize on Hugo by splashing an artist’s conception of him on billboards along the highway leading south: Hugo the killer whale thrashing through the frothy water, with an angry countenance and huge, bloody teeth.” – Ric O’Barry4
Hugo Suffered in Captivity
Hugo repeatedly injured himself while in captivity. At one point he severed the tip of his rostrum and a veterinarian had to sew it back on. According to a newspaper article at the time of the incident, “His powerful drive shattered the acrylic plastic bubble, and knocked a five-inch hole in it. And a piece of jagged plastic severed Hugo’s nose.”5 The same article speculated that an incident like this might happen again. And it did. Hugo rammed his head into the tank multiple times throughout his twelve years in captivity.
In 1980, Hugo died from a cerebral aneurysm, likely from the trauma he suffered from his self-mutilating behavior.6 Many refer to Hugo’s death as a suicide. The Miami Seaquarium lifted his body from the tank and put it in the Miami-Dade landfill.7 They did not memorialize his life or death in any way, “it was as if he had never existed.”8 Even today, this is the only mention of him on their website: “Miami Seaquarium welcomes the arrival of Hugo, it’s First Killer Whale to the park. The whale is named after Hugo Vihlen, the man who sailed across the Atlantic Ocean in a six-foot sailboat.”9
Hugo and Lolita at the Miami Seaquarium around April of 1977. Photo found and digitized by Thomas Hawk on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Lolita, Miami Seaquarium
While Hugo’s story is sad, Lolita’s story is even more sorrowful. She is a 7,000-pound orca and is 22 feet long but lives in the smallest and shallowest tank of any orca in North America. The tank is 80 feet long, 35 feet wide, and 20 feet deep. She can’t dive because she is as long as the tank is deep. For comparison, an Olympic-sized swimming pool is 164 feet in length and 82 feet wide. The tank violates the law, as the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), operating under the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), requires a minimum of 48 feet wide in either direction with a straight line of travel across the middle. But they do not have the authority to require an expansion. Worse, the local jurisdiction opposes the expansion of the Seaquarium on the small island. Drone footage shows just how small the pool she lives in is compared to her body:
“The orca Lolita’s tank at the Miami Seaquarium may be the smallest for thisspecies in the world—she is longer than half the width of the main tank.”10
But the size of her tank isn’t even the worst part.
Lolita lives alone.
Recall that orcas are highly social animals that usually live together for life in multigenerational family groups. Since Hugo’s death in 1980, she’s lived alone. Sometimes two or three Pacific white-sided dolphins live with her, but reports show that they rake and harass her.11 Can you imagine living alone except for two other species that only sometimes interacted with you?
After Hugo’s death, the Miami Seaquarium required Lolita to continue performing without her companion. In fact, they had her doing her regular performances the very next day. Her former trainer told a reporter at the time: “We expected problems when Hugo died, but Lolita performed as usual the next day…Once in a while she would look for him, but she got over it.”12 We now know that orcas grieve as humans do, so it is difficult to understand this today.
Lolita has always struggled in captivity. A former Seaquarium employee recalled Lolita’s early days at the Miami Seaquarium: “The skin on her back cracked and bled from the sun and wind exposure,” she said.“She wouldn’t eat the diet of frozen herring. … At night, she cried.”13 Today, she often floats very still and appears despondent. She cannot get enough physical activity, hasn’t seen another orca in over 40 years, and likely suffers emotionally.
“Even the Seaquariums’ public-relations director admits that the show won’t tell kids where Lolita comes from, what life for orcas is like in the wild, what threats face her native L pod…But then, these are the kinds of facts that prompt children to ask uncomfortable questions like, ‘Why isn’t Lolita with her family, Mommy?'”14
Lolita at the Miami Seaquarium, image by Marita Rickman from Pixabay
Capture & Relation to Hugo
In August 1970, four-year-old Lolita (originally named Tokitae) was one of six juvenile orcas captured from the waters off Washington state. “By 1987, Lolita was the only survivor out of an estimated fifty-eight killer whales taken captive from Puget Sound or killed during captures.”15The captures were often violent and whale herders used speedboats, an airplane, and explosives in the water to herd the orcas into a small area. “The juvenile orcas were separated from their mothers, as the infants were prime candidates to be sold to aquariums, while the adult orcas were released and free to leave. However, the adult pod would not leave their offspring and refused to swim free, vocalizing human-like cries, until the last baby was pulled out of the water, never to return again.”16 Another account described it this way: “During those weeks between capture and transport, the adult orcas never left the abduction site, and the sound of their grief-filled keening rang through the cove.”17 One adult and four young orcas were killed during Lolita’s capture.
Though caught in separate years, it turns out that Hugo and Lolita were related. “Unbeknownst to the staff and owner of Miami Seaquarium, Hugo and Lolita both were captured from the Southern Resident Killer Whale population, and shared similar dialects with one another, allowing them to communicate.”18 So while this was an accidental good pairing for companionship, Hugo and Lolita only had each other and mated. Lolita was pregnant several times but did not birth any live babies. She may have miscarried due to inbreeding. This does not seem to happen in wild orca populations.
“For the Seaquarium, Lolita represents a star money-making attraction, a possession so prized that officials maintain their grip on her despite years of protests by activists and animal experts who cite evidence that her living situation is legally and ethically unacceptable.” -The Whale Sanctuary Project19
Trainer “surfing” an orca, either Hugo or Lolita, at the Miami Seaquarium in the early 1970s. Photo by my mother
Time for Lolita’s Retirement
There are many organizations working on Lolita’s behalf to free her, including the Orca Network, the Center for Whale Research, Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project, the Empty The Tanks organization, the Salish Sea Marine Sanctuary organization, and The Whale Sanctuary Project. Ken Balcomb, marine biologist and founder of the Center for Whale Research, even offered to purchase her outright from the Miami Seaquarium in 1992. He had a plan to retire her to a sea pen in San Juan Island, Washington.20 But they refused to even discuss the sale of Lolita with Ken Balcomb’s group.
These movements began in the 1990s and have escalated since Southern Resident orcas were placed on the Endangered Species List in 2005. These organizations have had multiple campaigns, detailed retirement plans, lawsuits, and appeals filed on Lolita’s behalf. The best thing for this orca is to allow her to retire to an ocean sanctuary.
Florida. – Division of Tourism. View showing an animal trainer performing with an Orca whale at the Miami Seaquarium attraction. 20th century. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. <https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/93509>, accessed 6 May 2021.
But the Miami Seaquarium has no such plans. In 2019, their general manager, Eric Eimstad, wrote to The Seattle Times: “There is no room for debate on what is best for Lolita … For almost 5 decades we have provided and cared for Lolita, and we will not allow her life to be treated as an experiment. We will not jeopardize her health by considering any move from her home here in Miami.”21 The argument against her retirement is that she will not survive in the wild.
However, biologists would not drop Lolita in the ocean and leave her to fend for herself. They would move her to a sanctuary where she could learn to swim great lengths and depths again, catch food, and socialize. They would monitor her and provide veterinary care. The hope would be that she could go back to the open ocean someday. Her pod, known as the L pod, is still active and in fact, orca biologists have even figured out who her motherly most likely is – L25 – and she’s still alive! Named Ocean Sun, she’s approximately age 90 now, and L25’s pod still lives in the same area of Lolita’s capture. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could reunite them someday?
#50YearsOfStolenFreedom #Retire Lolita
“When I heard the Lolita story, I imagined how amazing it’d be to bring her back to her mother decades after her capture…This singlular, feasible event could catapult us into such a dignified direction. We owe this species big time. And we could start with her.” -Gabriela Cowperthwaite, Blackfish director22
Hurricane Irma
During Hurricane Irma in 2017, when the storm was on track for Miami, the Seaquarium did not evacuate her – they left her there! That storm turned and went to Tampa instead, but she would have likely died if Irma had hit Miami directly. As Dr. Jeffrey Ventre, a former SeaWorld trainer, noted, “In the context of the original storm forecast, which predicted a CAT 4 or 5 direct strike on Miami, the Seaquarium’s decision to roll the dice with her life is certainly callous, immoral, and unjust.”23
The City of Miami declared that anyone who abandoned their pets during the storm could be charged with animal cruelty. But this did not include the Miami Seaquarium, and Lolita could have been injured or killed. “The threats to exposed captive killer whales include missile injuries, blunt force trauma, stress, and foreign objects in the pool, which can be swallowed. In nature the whales can ride out storms, spending their time predominantly below the surface and at greater depths,” said Dr. Jeffrey Ventre. Another former SeaWorld trainer and advocate of orcas, Samantha Berg, pointed out that Lolita’s “tank is not deep enough for her to submerge and find refuge from flying debris.”24 Further, debris can be toxic to the orca. And if caretakers evacuate, Lolita doesn’t have anyone to feed her.
According to the Case Against Marine Mammal Captivity, facilities frequently do not evacuate animals in advance of storms.25 In fact, in 1992, Hurricane Andrew flooded the Miami Seaquarium and six of their sea lions were electrocuted.26 So is this a larger problem that we should not ignore? It is not unreasonable to believe that any zoo, aquarium, or park that is responsible for other beings should protect them at all costs.
“If [the Seaquarium] has no plan or protocol during a storm other than leaving her behind, then Lolita shouldn’t live there,” O’Barry says. “It’s a death sentence.” -Ric O’Barry27
Why is Lolita still living in captivity?
Many people consider Lolita to be the prime candidate for removal from captivity. After Hurricane Irma, the Miami Beach City Commission “voted unanimously on a resolution urging the Seaquarium to release her. The proposal is only symbolic because the Seaquarium is located on Virginia Key, not under the jurisdiction of Miami Beach. But Miami Beach officials are asking the park to retire Lolita into the care of the Orca Network, a nonprofit based in Freeland, Washington, which has had plans for how to retire the creature since 1995.” The Seaquarium argued against the vote and insisted Lolita was safer at the marine park than she would have been in a sea enclosure.28
Lolita at the Miami Seaquarium, image by FrodeCJ from Pixabay
“It is Lolita, more than any other captive orca, who offers the potential to answer the big question that hovered around the Blackfish debate: Why not return wild-born orcas to their native waters and pods?” -David Neiwert29
As mentioned above, there are many organizations advocating for Lolita’s release. Several organizations propose moving her to a sea pen with human care since she likely cannot live without human care at this point. There’s also the Whale Sanctuary Project which is currently building an ocean sanctuary for former captive whales. I’ve listed links to all of these below if you want to learn more or support these projects. Please see my Update on Lolita/Tokitae article.
The best thing you can do, though, is to not visit marine theme parks that hold captive whales or other marine mammals that require the animals to perform for entertainment. I’ve only shared two stories about captive orcas in this post, and I’ll share a few others in my next post. Thank you for reading, and please subscribe!
Additional Resources:
Film, Lolita: Slave to Entertainment
Website, Lolita, The Orca Network, accessed February 4, 2021.
Website, The Whale Sanctuary Project, accessed February 4, 2021.
Film, A Day in the Life of Lolita, the Performing Orca:
Website, Action for Lolita, Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project, accessed February 4, 2021.
Book, “Of Orcas and Men: What Killer Whales Can Teach Us,” by David Neiwert, The Overlook Press, New York, 2015.
Article, “Photo Illustrates the Lesson We Should Have Learned About Orca Captivity in the 1980s,” One Green Planet, accessed February 4, 2021.
Website, Action for Lolita, Empty The Tanks, accessed February 4, 2021.
Article, “What Happens to Them Happens to Us,” Hakai Magazine, May 12, 2020.
Website, Save Lolita Organization, accessed February 4, 2021.
Film, “Window of the Living Sea,” Florida Memory State Library and Archives of Florida, 1970. Original film from the Miami Seaquarium, features Hugo and Lolita together in brief sections.
As far back as I can remember I’ve loved animals, and I’ve always felt the desire to protect them. I’ve never seen an orca in real life and I had always wanted to visit SeaWorld and had even hoped to take my son there one day. Over the last year, I’ve learned a lot about these amazing, majestic, intelligent, and beautiful creatures. But I also learned about the trials, dangers, and cruelty that come with having orcas in captivity. In this series, I’ll explain why I will now never be able to visit SeaWorld.
About Wild Orcas
Orcas, also known as killer whales, are perhaps the smartest species and have a higher emotional capacity than humans. Orcas are the largest members of the dolphin family. There are several types of orcas and they are found in all of the world’s oceans, most abundantly in colder waters like in Antarctica, Norway, and Alaska. What they eat varies by location and pod preference. They live in matrilineal pods that travel between 50 and 100 miles per day. They have complex coordinated hunting techniques, showing a high level of communication. Mothers typically have one calf about every 5 years and calves, particularly males, will stay with their mothers for life. Orcas are apex predators, meaning that there are no animals that prey upon them.
Orcas have large brains and have challenged the belief that humans are the most intelligent species. These social animals have strong bonds with each other, organize for play and hunting, and communicate in ways beyond vocalizations that humans don’t understand. They use echolocation and rely on underwater sound to feed, communicate, and navigate. Even though their vocalizations sound the same to us, each orca pod possesses a unique set of culturally transmitted and learned calls.
“Social life for killer whales…is deeper and more omnipresent than it is for humans; their identities are defined by their families and tribal connections; and their empathy is powerful enough to extend to other species. If orcas have established empathy as a distinctive evolutionary advantage, it might behoove a human race awash in war and psychopathy to pay attention.” -David Neiwert1
There are many ecotypes of orca. The Southern Resident orca, which resides in the Pacific Ocean in areas ranging from central California to southeast Alaska, is critically endangered. There are only 74 individuals (three pods) in the wild as of October 2020. While they are protected, there are always threats stemming from food supply issues; pollution and contaminants in the ocean; global warming; and most importantly, human activities.
Photo by NOAA on Unsplash.
Sound Pollution
Whales are extremely sensitive to sound as they can hear (and feel) much higher ranges than humans, so sound pollution from ships can significantly affect them. The NOAA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, requests that people choose land-based whale watching because it decreases the number of boats on the water, which reduces underwater noise that can disturb killer whales. The Whale Trail2 includes many land-based observation sites where you can view and learn about over 30 marine mammals, and there are more than 100 shoreside sites in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California.3
One example of human activity and sound pollution comes from our own U.S. Navy, which “has been authorized for decades to conduct local testing and training, which includes firing torpedoes, detonating bombs and piloting drones.” Recently, NOAA Fisheries approved the U.S. Navy to continue military exercises in Puget Sound and coastal Washington waters for an additional 7 years.4 I personally find it very confusing that they permit the Navy to cause such extreme sound pollution but ask that others reduce theirs.
Image by 272447 from Pixabay
“Orcas filter incoming sound through high-quality fat in their lower jaws, and this appears to give them abilities to distinguish sound and where it comes from in ways humans probably can’t visualize.”5
Free Willy, starring Keiko
Though the Free Willy movies came out in the 1990s, I had never seen them. This year, since COVID-19 has kept us home, we’re obviously watching a few more movies than before. We watched three of them and even though these movies are a little dated and a little predictable, I enjoyed watching them with my son.
Afterward, I was curious if they were based on a true story, so I researched a little and found that while the movie was fictional, the starring whale, Keiko, had in fact lived in captivity and had later been freed. I wanted to know Keiko’s story so I watched the 2010 documentary, Keiko: the Untold Story of the Star of Free Willy. Spoiler alert: I cried at Keiko’s death but he had lived in the ocean instead of a small tank for 5 years, and for a year and a half he swam freely in the ocean. He likely would have lived a much shorter life had he remained in captivity.
His release was and still is controversial, but Keiko’s fame, life, and death hold great importance. One article described that “the fight for his freedom and his subsequent release…brought worldwide attention to the welfare of marine mammals in captivity.”6 Keiko will never be forgotten because of his importance in capturing the attention of the world regarding whales in captivity.
“As a retirement project, it was a 100% success. [Keiko] lived in his natural habitat…the health problems he suffered from all cleared up. He thrived for 5 plus years. How is that a failure?” -Dr. Naomi A. Rose
Blackfish
Then I saw Blackfish, twice. I was so intrigued by the relationships trainers develop with these animals. But there is a huge controversy about orcas in captivity. This film told the story of Tilikum, an orca that was involved in the deaths of three people over the course of his captivity. Tilikum killed an experienced trainer in 2010 and her tragic death was highly publicized. The film highlights the fact that SeaWorld blamed her death on her instead of the whale. I’ll explore Blackfish and killer whales in captivity in this series.
Luna the Whale
One of my favorite documentaries was called The Whale, about a wild orca named Luna that tried to befriend humans after becoming separated from his pod. The whale’s behaviors gained fame and soon many people were trying to interact with him. It became controversial because some marine biologists felt that this was not good for the whale. Luna showed the connections between humans and animals.
Michael Parfit, who coauthored The Lost Whale, said this in the film above: “We meet at a dock in Mooyah Bay and we look at each and we recognize something. This isn’t casual stuff, I thought, this isn’t insignificant…I looked at him, I looked at that awareness that looked back at me, and I thought, we’ve treated you with inconsistency, we’ve treated you with disdain, but still, you trust us. How in the world, I thought, will we ever be forgiven by life, by nature, by ourselves – if we let you suffer just because you’re trying to be our friend?” I wept during this film but it made me appreciate these whales even more. They are such beautiful, social, emotional, and intelligent creatures!
“Many people hope that someday we’ll meet an intelligent being from another world. Hollywood tells us this being will come flying down in a spaceship, and he’ll look a bit like us. Most importantly, he’ll have a mind like ours, and we’ll figure out how to communicate right away. But maybe it won’t be like that. Maybe it will be like this” [showing Luna the orca]. -Ryan Reynolds, narrator of The Whale
More on Orcas
There are many documentaries about orcas, and there are also dozens of books about orcas. I’m still trying to read them all. As I do, I’ll update this post and my Books page. I encourage you to learn and read about orcas! Check your local library to see what resources they may offer. Comment below to let me know if there’s a good book you’ve read that you’d like me to know about! Thanks for reading, please subscribe, and look for my upcoming articles on the Blackfish documentary, SeaWorld, and other marine parks.
Additional Resources:
Website, “Orcas (Killer Whales): Facts and Information,” National Geographic, accessed November 30, 2020.
Article, “Endangered orcas at risk from U.S. Navy, activists warn,” by Jeff Berardelli, CBS News, July 31, 2020.
Website, “Meet the Different Types of Orcas,” Whale and Dolphin Conservation, accessed December 9, 2020.
Article, “The Whale Who Would Not Be Freed,” The New York Times, September 16, 2013.
Video, “Freeing Willy,” Retro Report, The New York Times, September 16, 2013.
Article, “How to Watch Whales and Dolphins Responsibly,” Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project, accessed January 30, 2021.
Article, “Orca Recovery Day: Why The Whale Trail is greenest way to see marine life in wild,” The Palm Beach Post, October 18, 2019.
Page, “The Luna File,” The Orca Conservancy, accessed May 5, 2021.
Article, “Befriending Luna the Killer Whale: How a popular Smithsonian story about a stranded orca led to a new documentary about humanity’s link to wild animals,” Smithsonian Magazine, April 13, 2008.
Article, “Luna: the Orca Who Wanted to Be Friends,” The Whale Sanctuary Project, accessed May 5, 2021.
His release was and still is controversial, but Keiko’s fame, life, and death hold great importance. One article described that “the fight for his freedom and his subsequent release…brought worldwide attention to the welfare of marine mammals in captivity.”
Michael Parfit, who coauthored The Lost Whale, said this in the film above: “We meet at a dock in Mooyah Bay and we look at each and we recognize something. This isn’t casual stuff, I thought, this isn’t insignificant…I looked at him, I looked at that awareness that looked back at me, and I thought, we’ve treated you with inconsistency, we’ve treated you with disdain, but still, you trust us. How in the world, I thought, will we ever be forgiven by life, by nature, by ourselves – if we let you suffer just because you’re trying to be our friend?” I wept during this film but it made me appreciate these whales even more. They are such beautiful, social, emotional, and intelligent creatures!