Free Lolita! After 45 years in captivity, acitivists want a Salish Sea orca returned to her home waters

In 1970, several young southern resident orca whales were plucked from the Salish Sea, including a whale who is now known as Lolita.

“Lolita may be known more around these parts as Tokitae and back in August of 1970 she was kidnapped, if you will, from our waters,” says Seattle Lolita advocate Janine Dainis. “At that time it was becoming very popular to hunt for Orca whales to populate some of the marine parks around the world.”

So for the past 44 years Lolita has been living in a small tank at the Miami Seaquarium.

“Lolita, or Tokitae, is 22 feet in length and the width of her tank that she has lived in every day for 44 years is only 35 feet. It’s depth is 20 feet so she can’t even do a deep dive in her own tank.”

Lolita is the longest living southern resident orca in captivity, all of the others died after about five years in marine parks.

“A number of the orcas committed suicide, if you will, where they close their blowholes and they died. They did have another whale with her, for a period of time, that was also a southern resident. They were kept in separate tanks and this became so traumatic because they have the same language and they were trying to communicate to each other in separate tanks. And that whale, named Hugo, actually bashed his head into the side of his tank repeatedly and he too died of an aneurysm. I think that speaks to the intelligence of the animals when they become so unhappy and frustrated with their situation that they have the ways and techniques to kill themselves off.”

After 45 years in captivity, Lolita’s supporters have not forgotten about her. This Saturday, a thousand people will gather at the Miami Seaquarium for the Miracle March for Lolita and, here in Seattle, Janine is the co-organizer of a march and rally.

“We’re doing our event on Saturday at Alki Beach at the Statue of Liberty. There are going to be events in Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, all through the United States.”

They say it’s not too late for Lolita, that she deserves to be set free.

“This is just not a bunch of passionate, yet misguided, people that want her freedom. There’s an entire plan in place for her release. There’s a seapen designated for her off of Orcas Island. There is a very detailed plan for transportation. The Miami Seaquarium trainers are going to be a huge part of acclimating her to her seapen. And, most importantly, her family still swims those waters. She still speaks the language of her pod and she still vocalizes quite a bit at Seaquarium. We do know that she could make that transition safely.”

Janine says it’s important to teach our children that keeping these huge, intelligent animals in small pens is not OK.

“You know, a lot of people are comparing it to slavery. That there was a time when people didn’t give it a thought. Where it was OK to keep something else, or somebody else, for your own amusement and usage. And I think that it does have a good message to send with the situation for the orcas. These are animals that live together with their family their entire lives. They have very large brains. They have the capacity for compassion.”