More than 50 years after the orca known as Lolita was captured for public display, plans are in place to return her from the Miami Seaquarium to her home waters in the Pacific Northwest — where a nearly century-old, endangered whale believed to be her mother still swims
FILE - Trainer Marcia Hinton pets Lolita, a captive orca whale, during a performance at the Miami Seaquarium in Miami, March 9, 1995. An unlikely coalition made up of a theme park owner, an animal rights group, a mayor and a philanthropist who owns an NFL team announced Thursday, March 30, 2023, that a plan is in place to return Lolita — an orca that has lived in captivity at the Miami Seaquarium for more than 50 years — to its home waters in the Pacific Northwest.
The orca believed to be her mother, called Ocean Sun, continues to swim free with other members of their clan — known as L pod — and is estimated to be more than 90 years old. That has given advocates of her release optimism that Tokitae could still maybe have a long life in the wild. The plan is to transport Lolita by plane to an ocean sanctuary in the waters between Washington and Canada, where she will initially swim inside a large net while trainers and veterinarians teach her how to catch fish.
The legacy of the whale roundups of the 1960s and '70s continues to haunt a distinct group of endangered, salmon-eating orcas that are known as the southern resident killer whales and spend much of their time in the waters between Washington and Canada.
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