Thursday, August 8, 2013

Lolita

Hey guys! I felt like I should share the details of a particularly sad story I've been reading about.
 
 
Meet Lolita.
 
 
She is the main attraction at the Miami Seauarium.
 
She was captured in 1970 in Penn Cove. 13 members of her pod family were killed in the brutal captures that occurred in the late 60/early 70s there near Washington State.
 
 
She has lived for 40 years in the country's oldest and smallest tank.
 
 
Are you even seeing how old and nasty and TINY that tank is?
Lets zoom out and look from google earth.
 
 
So, yeah. A Killer whale lives in that baby pool.
 
There is no shade structure to protect her from the Miami sun. That's just one of the many USDA and APHIS regulations that this tank doesn't meet. I'm like, if it doesn't meet standards, how is it legally continuing? But it's been 40 years. I don't know.
 
 
 
For 9 years, Lolita shared her tank with a male killer whale named Hugo.
 
He was a handsome fellow.
 
 
 
He died in 1980 of a brain aneurysm after repeatedly bashing his head against the walls of the pool.
 
 
His body was placed in the Miami dump.
 
 
 
 
Since that time, Lolita has lived completely isolated from her kind. She is, of course, one of the most social and family-oriented species on the planet.
 
 
 
Not all Orca Whales would fare in he wild after living so long in captivity, but there are some candidates who scientists believe could be successfully rehabilitated to life in the wild. Lolita (or Tokitae, as she was originally named) is one of those candidates. Its likely that her mother is still alive and that she could be reintroduced to her family pod.
 
You can read her retirement plan, as it was presented to Miami Seaqaurium, here:
 
 
 
References:
 
 
 
 

 
 

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