The retirement plan for an orca named Lolita - Phase Two

Photo ©Peter Pijpelink

Phase Two

Lolita will be given all the time she needs to become accustomed to her new seapen, surroundings, and staff. When she displays no abnormal stress and exhibits normal physical parameters, rehabilitation will begin.

The team will be partly following the steps put forth in Project Deep Ops: Deep Object Recovery with Pilot and Killer Whales, NUC TP 306 by C.A. Bowers and R.S. Henderson. In this study, two orca were kept in seapens in Hawaii while being trained to follow boats more than ten nautical miles and dive hundreds of feet deep. This is called boat-recall training.

To read the entire article, go to "The retirement plan for an orca named Lolita - Phase Two".

An Orca Named Lolita - The Plan for her Retirement - Part 1

Monday marked Lolita's 39 years in captivity at the Miami Seaquarium. There has been an ongoing campaign to let Lolita retire. A number of people have contacted me to voice their opposition to this thinking that we plan to just release her back into the wild. This is not the case. I have also received a number of emails about Keiko. For the differences in the two cases, please read, "Keiko and Lolita: Same or Different".


For more on the retirement plan for Lolita, go to: "An Orca Named Lolita - The Plan for her Retirement - Part 1"

An Orca named Lolita - Where it all started

The year was 1964. The World’s Fair was being held in New York City, the Olympics were in Tokyo, and the US was watching "Flipper" and "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" on the TV. At the same time, the Vancouver Aquarium in Canada decided that they wanted a sculpture of an orca.

Read complete article here

How you can help Lolita - Worldwide event - September 13th

This is a worldwide event!

Anyone from around the world can help! You do not need to live in Florida to help Lolita, anymore than you need to live in Taiji to help the dolphins! This event is scheduled for Sunday, September 13, 2009. We are asking people to call, fax, email, or snail mail the Miami Seaquarium and tell them it is time for her to retire! September 14th marks 39 years Lolita has been at Seaquarium. She has well earned her retirement!

Ways you can help 

Click here for how you can help!

An Orca named Lolita

The other day I posted Part 8 on The Penn Cove captures. Today is the 39th anniversary of that day. 39 years that Lolita has been in captivity, and 39 years since the others were captured and 5 were killed in the process. Of the five, four were babies who were ripped away from their mothers. Witnesses who were there at the time were powerless to do anything as the capture team was armed with guns to keep them away. The witnesses say to this day they can hear the screams of the orca mother and babies as they tried to reach each other and could not. I know there is a big walk planned for Miami today to protest Lolita's continued captivity. I only wish I could be with them, but I am there in spirit.

This morning while watching "A Lion named Christian" on Animal Planet, I suddenly realized the correlation between Christian and Lolita. The difference is that Ace and John did an unselfish act and allowed Christian to go free. Arthur Hertz, owner of the Miami Seaquarium, will not let Lolita go free. Letting go is hard, but it's time to let her go, Arthur. In fact, it's long past due. Lolita has been in captivity for 39 years today. She needs to be free to be with her family and swim in the waters where she was born. 

An Orca named Lolita - Part 8 - The Penn Cove captures

An Orca named Lolita - Part 9 - A Lion named Christian

An Orca Named Lolita

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article on Lolita, the orca at the Miami Seaquarium. I received such a response that I had to keep writing. Something inside me is pushing me on to tell her story to the world. I just uploaded Part 7 of An Orca name Lolita.

Lolita was one of the orcas captured on August 8, 1970 in Penn Cove on Whidbey Island, WA. She was sold to the Miami Seaquarium where she has been held captive since that time. She is housed in a tank that is illegal according to the Animal Welfare Act, but nothing has been done to get her out of there.

Orcas are social creatures and live in pods. Lolita has not seen another orca since 1980 when her companion orca, Hugo, died.  Hugo developed a brain aneurism after banging his head repeatedly against the walls of the tank in an effort to get out.  In essence, he committed suicide. 

Orca Network had tried for years to get Lolita out of there. What is it going to take to get this accomplished?  The Center for Whale Research has devised a total plan for her rehabilitation and reintroduction back to her pod. For those who want to compare her to Keiko, please go read Part 7 where I address the differences. 

How You Can Help!

Write to APHIS and ask why this has been allowed to go on for so long and then ask them when they are doing to do something about it!  

Write to: Secretary Tom Vilsack

Secretary of Agriculture

USDA/APHIS/AC

4700 River Road, Unit 84

Riverdale, MD 20737-1234

Then write to President Obama and ask him why APHIS is not doing their job and how long he’s going to allow this travesty to continue.

President Barack Obama

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Washington, DC  20500

Make your voice heard! It is time for Lolita to be retired and for her to come home.