Make a Splash: Free Lolita!
April 30th, 2013 |
| The show is designed to make people believe Lolita is having fun. |
Meet Lolita: an intelligent and sensitive orca, confined to the smallest orca tank in North America. This life means daily misery for Lolita, but big bucks for the Miami Seaquarium. And, even though her shameful living conditions clearly violate the Animal Welfare Act, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) continues to hand out AWA licenses to the Seaquarium. The Animal Legal Defense Fund is outraged, and working hard to give Lolita the justice she so rightly deserves, which includes protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Lolita was one of seven orcas kidnapped in the notorious 1970 Penn Cove round up in Puget Sound, Washington. In this horrific event, four orcas (three calves) drowned in the nets and their bellies were slit in an attempt by human captors to sink the bodies—perhaps to hide this shameful waste of life. However, the bodies of the dead orcas washed ashore and lead to righteous public outrage. You can hear the cries of Lolita and her family in the devastating video footage of her family’s capture.
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| Performers literally ride on Lolita's back for profit. |
ALDF Fights to Free Lolita
This is why ALDF is doing everything it can to help return Lolita to her family. ALDF (along with PETA) is suing the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to end the exclusion of Lolita from the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of the Pacific Northwest's Southern Resident orcas. With a small victory in ALDF’s joint petition with PETA, NMFS has agreed to accept public comments for a 90-day period through June 23, 2013. ALDF is also working to stop the USDA’s unmerited renewal of the Seaquarium’s AWA license.
ALDF is asking the courts to intervene where the federal agencies charged with protecting Lolita have repeatedly failed her. "The horror of Lolita’s confinement is inconceivable" says Jenni James, litigation fellow at ALDF. "It is time for the government to grant her the legal protections she has been denied for decades."
Let Lolita Go Home
In the wild, orcas spend their entire lives with their mothers and family bonds last a lifetime. In 1996, twenty-six years after her capture, Lolita was played a recording of her family’s calls. Lolita returned the distinct dialect of her family’s calls, in clear recognition of familiar voices. And at more than 80 years old, Lolita’s mother (one of the endangered Southern Resident orcas off the coast of Washington state) still thrives in a seaside sanctuary in their home waters, waiting for Lolita to come home.
But because she brings in profit, Lolita instead swims tiny circles in a shallow and barren cement tank that doesn’t meet the minimum requirements of the Animal Welfare Act. Constantly exposed to the burning Miami sun and tropical storms, Lolita has been without an orca companion for three decades.
Alone in Her Tiny Tank
In the beginning, Lolita had the company of Hugo, a male orca who shared her tank from 1971 until 1980. They mated, but in her stressful environment Lolita suffered unsuccessful pregnancies. In 1980, in what many believe was a desperate attempt to break free from his miserable prison, or commit suicide, Hugo continuously rammed his head into the side of the tank and died of a brain aneurysm. In 1980, Hugo’s sudden death left Lolita sulking at the bottom of her tank in a state "not unlike bereavement." Lolita has not had a killer whale companion since.
As a reward for her own extraordinary will to live, Lolita has been exploited for 43 years. She was abducted from her family and enslaved purely for the profit of the "amusement" park. Despite shameful and inhumane living conditions, Lolita endures – and her survivor spirit has haunted the hearts of people around the world. But given the low quality of her life at Seaquarium, it is likely she will die decades before her time, unless we act now, as we did for Keiko ("Willy"). It is time for us to set Lolita free.
What You Can Do to Help
On April 29, 2013 the National Marine Fisheries Service accepted ALDF's petition protect Lolita under the Endangered Species Act. The public now has 90 days to leave comments in support of including Lolita in the Endangered Species Act listing of Southern Resident Killer Whales.
- Contact the USDA and ask them to follow the law provided in the Animal Welfare Act.
- Educate yourself and your friends, and spread the word through social media.
- Do not buy a ticket to any amusement park, especially the Miami Seaquarium.
- Do not support companies like Princess Cruises (a division of Carnival Cruises) that endorse animal cruelty at the Seaquarium.
More Information
- Watch the award-winning documentary about Lolita: Lolita: Slave to Entertainment.
- Read Lolita’s Proposed Retirement Plan.
- Orca Project’s video, A Better Way to See Orcas.
- Read ALDF’s review of bestseller Death at SeaWorld and interview with author David Kirby.
- Watch the award-winning documentary Blackfish about orcas at SeaWorld.
- Copies of the lawsuit are available upon request.
We can't give Lolita the years she has lost, but at least we could stop depriving her from now on.
Please let her go home... She is a hightly adaptable, intellegent So Resident Orca and she needs to be released.
WHEN WILL THE HUMAN LOSE THEIR EGO ? AN ORCA WHALE KEPT IN CAPTIVITY FOR 40 YEARS, AND THE EGOTISTICAL HUMANS RIDING AND SITTING ON IT, AND THIS IS CLEVER ?? I DON'T THINK SO !! THEY WILL STOOP TO ANY LEVEL OF CRUELTY TO FEED THEIR BIG EGOS AND BRING IN MONEY BY TAKING A WILD ANIMAL AND ABUSING IT FOR THIS PURPOSE. CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT AN ANIMAL HAS TO SUFFER TO BE MADE TO PERFORM TRICKS !! UNNATURAL AND WRONG IN EVERY WAY !
Sylvia Stewart Former Head Elephant Keeper San Francisco Zoo Nursery Herd of May, Penny, Tinkerbelle, Taji The AZA and the captive animals for profit paradigm is imploding. The new paradigm is growing stronger thanks to you and so many others. It broke my heart and has haunted me when this sweet orca heard her family. The way she answered and then bowed her head in deep sobs of pain and sorrow. Keep fighting for her. Mother Earth is with you, for she wants us all taken care of and living in peace in her beautiful world of plenty. She is taking us to Fourth Density which is more loving and true and filled with the universal Love Light. Next year we will be in the doorway. With luck and God's Will you will get her back to her family. Keep visualizing, keep shining Love Light on her and her oppressors and visualize the situation clearing. What I tell you is what the elephants and all other animals have taught me. "Ask the beast of the field of the Eternal One" All other species, everything in existence is connected. We are the ones who have become lost, so let the Love Light Shine...."Go to the Light children all are welcome" Love ya, Sylvia and Tinkerbelle
The more I read about slavery, whether animal or human, the more I am disgusted. I would really like to know why people think capturing wild animals and basically keeping them confined is "good for business". It actually reflects upon and emphasizes the greed and cruelty of Man This practice must stop; free this creature and reintroduce her to her natural element.
Lolita needs to be home with her fanily that she was so brutally taken from. Can't wait for the day to see her frolicing and rejoicing in the waters where she came from. LOLITA WE WILL NOT STOP FIGHTING FOR YOU.
Animals are not ours to eat, wear,use,abuse for entertainment. This is not natural to captivate these aquatic creatures confined. They need to be in their own natural habitat to roam the seas as nature intended. Typical human beings that always think of themselves and could care less about the strife, mental and physical abuse animals suffer do to un-natural confinement. To truly be a human being in character one must become humane beings first. Go VEGCON pronounced veegcon which means VEGetarian CONscious. VEGCONISM is the "Conscious Choice by Changing Hearts to Changed Minds". These are the newer words becoming more popular in meaning than vegan and veganism
WHAT THE HELL?? Free this DAMN WHALE DAMMIT, let her breath her FINAL BREATH FREE.... OMG the torture this BEAUTIFUL soul has endured! ENOUGH!! DAMMIT, let Lolita Go! let her go, wow :( she has been held prisoner long enough..let her Die In Peace... this poor girl
My heart goes out to Lolita - 40 years imprisoned in such a cruel environment is shamefully disgraceful. These people should be dealt with and the law enforced and not ignored. This is cruelty on such an awful level it turns my stomach. Lolita should be free roaming the seas but so many years of captivity have stolen that from her. How she has survived this hell god only knows. To think this kind of cruelty is acceptable in todays world just because Lolita keeps the dollars rolling in - it is dispicable! Please stop this unspeakable cruelty and let Lolita's living environment improve immensely if she can't be set free. ALDF - you have my support and i trust you will do right by Lolita.
Actually, the one poster should read their Bible again...man was given dominion over all the earth and that includes animals. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with eating meat or wearing leather, the problem is that people insist on treating animals as products and can't be bothered to let them live their lives humanely and ensure humane slaughter. That said, other things are ethically wrong. You can't get fur without cruelty, and that needs to be stopped. Rodeos and circuses don't need to go on using animals. Animal testing needs to be replaced. And whales and dolphins don't belong in tanks. The government definitely needs to seize both Lolita and Corky and force the retirement of both to sea pens. Also,it's obvious that person was repeating the PETA mantra. Try going to http://www.petakills.org and open your eyes to the real truth about the group. Animal welfare is a good thing. Going to extremes is not.
It's all so very sad, to abuse this animal like this for egostistical purposes and for such a long time. You'd think we would have learnt by now that this is just not the way to treat animals,there has been so many protests so much whinging about this horrid act to this poor ocre, I say .......have we learnt. When for crying out loud will this animal be given his rights for freedom. This planet is full of human abuse of such wonderful creatures, what would the planet be like without these wonders. I despise those who think this is great but.....give applause to those who try to end this atroscity. The fight, the comments, the petitions the condemnations will go on, when will the abusers listen? Oh Lord please let it end NOW!
I know most people don't equate animal suffering with human suffering. In our anthropocentric mindset, we naturally think that ours is worse. But think about it. How would you like to be taken from your home and the freedom you cherish, only to be locked in a small little house in a foreign country for 42 years... never ever to go home again? Please free Lolita. It will make you feel better about you.
Whilst writing articles on her, entitled An Orca Named Lolita, I fell in love with her. She is such an amazing animal. I also live in Washington and see her family, L pod, every summer. And every summer I imagine her back here swimming freely with them. She deserves to come home where she belongs. It will be the happiest day of my life when I can see her swimming in her home waters, once again feeling the currents and sea water on her skin.
Do we have any updates to this story?