Probable daughter of Ocean Sun member of the L-POD Whale Family of PUGET Sound & SACRED ORCA Child of the LUMMI Nation
By Elizabeth Adair
She is a magnificent creature of God, created for the cool and misty waters of the Pacific Northwest. To swim her whole life with her mother and her pod family, perhaps traveling a hundred miles a day and diving up to 500 feet, to sing the whale songs of her heart with her family in their unique dialect. Yet she is confined at Miami Seaquarium, in the tiniest, concrete, chlorinated tank in the US. She is 20 ft long, her tiny tank is only 35 ft wide and 20 ft deep. She has been in this tiny tank for over 48 years, being made to do circus tricks for her food. She has no shade and she is constantly painted black to stop her skin burning from the scorching Florida sun. For decades people of the Pacific Northwest have campaigned for their orca to be returned to them and in recent times have been joined by hundreds of thousands of people across the US and around the globe. These heartfelt requests have fallen on deaf ears as whales have been big business and could bring in millions of dollars a year from mostly quick “entertainment”.
Between 1965 and 1976 the whale pods of the Pacific Northwest were decimated as baby orcas were rounded up for sale to aquariums around the world. The most violent methods were used for this pursuit. Spotter planes, speedboats and explosives were all used in a coordinated effort to drive the orca pods into Penn Cove so the babies could be separated from the adults, captured and sent to a life of captivity.
August 8th, 1970 seven baby orcas were rounded up from the Southern Resident Orca pods as residents of the area stood helplessly by as witnesses to this heartbreaking event as this activity had not been outlawed at that time. The babies were violently ripped from their families and cried out as the adult whales called back and tried to rescue them without success from the whale hunters.
(excerpted from the book ‘A Puget Sound Orca In Captivity – The Fight To Bring Lolita Home’ by marine naturalist Sandra Pollard, published by Arcadia Publishing)…”After encasement in a canvas sling, Lolita was once again hoisted by crane…and lowered onto a flatbed truck for transportation to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. From there, she would be transferred to an aircraft for the 2,724-mile flight to Miami International Airport. The days of traveling with her pod exploring the ancient waterways of her cultural heritage were over. Soon the cooling currents of the Pacific Ocean would be replaced by filtered water from the Bay of Biscayne. Every day, she would suffer the humidity and scorching heat of the relentless Miami sun. There would be no more joyous breaching against the backdrop of the glacial peaks and snow-capped mountain ranges that form the Pacific Northwest’s magnificent landscape. Instead, she would learn to jump on cue for a meal of dead fish, with a fleeting glimpse of the galaxy beyond flaking concrete bleachers and a corrugated metal roof. The scream of jets flying directly overhead to and from Miami International Airport and the constant rumble of traffic would assail her senses. Although the ocean – and freedom – beckoned nearby, she could no longer see the place she knew as home. Now her future lay in serving her masters, Wometco Enterprises. In just a few short weeks like many other members of her extended family, she had become just another commodity”.
Between 1965 and 1976 the violent raids by orca hunters resulted in dozens of baby orca’s like Lolita being sent to aquariums around the globe. A decade later none was still alive with the exception of Lolita/Tokitae. Lolita has been the star attraction at Miami Seaquarium for over four decades. Since 1978 the owners of Miami Seaquarium have promised to enlarge her tiny, tiny tank and although they have spent millions upon millions of dollars on renovations they have never done this.
There are many firsthand accounts from those who have attended the Seaquarium and taken a close and personal look at the tiny tank. For them the size of the tiny tank is even more staggeringly small viewed in person. 3,000 miles away from Miami on August 8th every year the people of Penn Cove, Washington state gather for a ceremony on the water to remember the baby orcas who were so ruthlessly stolen and to pray for Lolita’s return.
Orca Network has worked tirelessly for two decades to bring her home and orca experts from the Center for Whale Research created a comprehensive transportation and rehabilitation plan that was further vetted by independent orca experts. She would be brought to a seapen sanctuary, allowed to heal in the ocean water, after years of drugs and antibiotics, fed live salmon as she regains her hunting skills, and attended daily by those who have loved her and campaigned for her return for decades. The plan was created with Lolita/Tokitae’s welfare in mind.
Tokitae’s seapen sanctuary is close to the ocean waters traveled by her pod, including her probable mother Ocean Sun, the matriach of Tokitae’s L-pod family and now around 90 years old. Tokitae may even be able to speak to them in their distinct dialogue and sing to them the whale songs of her heart.
Any efforts to bring Miami Seaquarium into collaboration have been heartlessly batted back.During the years Miami Seaquarium changed ownership, however this never affected Lolita’s conditions. In 2015 she was declared an endangered species as part of the same designation as her family, the Resident Orca Whales of the Puget Sound. This never affected Lolita’s conditions, as Miami Seaquarium continues to behave as if nothing has changed.
At this time Miami Seaquarium is owned and operated by Palace Entertainment out of Newport Beach, CA who in turn is owned by Parques Reunidos in Spain. They pride themselves on being a global presence in the business of “fun” and have many captive animal facilities around the world.
Parques Reunidos has refused to communicate to anyone, including Philip Levine, then Mayor of Miami Beach who sent a letter in the fall of 2017 to ask for Lolita’s retirement after he and his city council, the Broward Board of Commissioners, and Mayor Stoddard of South Miami and his city council voted unanimously to retire Lolita after Miami Seaquarium abandoned Lolita during Hurricane Irma.
Despite all the resistance of power and money the movement to bring Lolita home just continues to grow. Around the globe an annual event is held every June by the grassroots movement ‘Until Lolita Is Home’ and more people worldwide begin to voice their outrage at this cruel enslavement of one of God’s magnificent creatures, while a real sanctuary awaits in her ancestral waters.
The hope for the future and that the love for Lolita/Tokitae will bring her home does not diminish, it just grows. Tokitae is Lolita’s real Salish name, it means ‘Nice day, pretty colors’ The Lummi Nation of the Puget Sound are her family by heritage and cosmology, being one of the biggest and strongest federally recognized ocean-based Coast Salish tribes of Washington State.
(excerpted from the book “A Puget Sound Orca In Captivity – The Fight To Bring Lolita Home’ by marine naturalist Sandra Pollard, published by Arcadia Publishing)…”The Lummi people first heard about Lolita’s story after a young woman from upstate New York contacted them. She kept dreaming that Tokitae was trying to communicate and heard her calling, , “Can anybody hear me, can anybody help me go home?” The dreams were so vivid that she contacted Douglas James, an elder of the Lummi Nation. He took her claims seriously and talked to others on the tribal council, who undertook their own research. After members of the tribal council completed their study and a group of transient orcas swam past his grandmother’s house in Bellingham Bay, council member Nickolaus Dee Lewis contacted Garrett and asked “How can we help?
“On August 1, 2017, The Lummi Nation passed a motion supporting the campaign to bring Lolita home. In a letter addressed to Garrett (Orca Network) dated August 7, the Lummi Indian Business Council announced, The Lummi Nation honors our connection to the Killer Whale (qw.e lh ‘ol me chen) as a culturally significant species and supports the work of the Lummi Nation’s Sovereignty and Treaty Protection Office in its efforts to bring the Killer Whale Tokitae home to her family as soon as possible.” May 2018 The House of Tears Carvers of the Lummi Nation traversed the United States, accompanied by members of The Sierra Club, with their Tokitae Totem Pole from Puget Sound to Miami to ask for their sacred orca child back. asking for Lolita to retire was reckless and irresponsible.
Miami Seaquarium officials refused to speak with them, gave derisive comments to the press and turned their backs. Shortly following this they ran a PR campaign saying anyone asking for Lolita to retire was reckless and irresponsible. Again nothing could be further from the truth. The plan to bring Lolita/Tokitae home was developed by orca experts and further vetted by independent orca experts, written with only her safety and care in mind. The trainers and veterinarians at Miami Seaquarium have been asked to accompany her home so the journey would be as safe and comfortable as possible for her.
The happy ending is still being pursued by those across the country and around the globe who want Lolita to be given a chance at some of the life that has been so cruelly stolen from her.
December 2018 representatives of the Lummi Nation once again crossed the US with their Tokitae Totem Pole to the University of Florida, Gainesville, Fl, where they are hosting an educational exhibit “Whale People – Protectors of the Sea”. This exhibit will be there until the end of May 2019 and can be viewed on line at: https://thenaturalhistorymuseum.org/events/whale-people-protectors-of-the-sea/
At the beginning of June 2019 representatives of the Lummi Nation will once again travel with the Tokitae Totem Pole to Miami Seaquarium to bring attention to their request for their Sacred Orca Child to be returned to them. They will then traverse the US back to the West Coast to Los Angeles and Newport Beach, CA in mid-June to ask Palace Entertainment to join them in their ‘sacred obligation’ to bring Lolita/Tokitae home.And finally they will travel north to Lummi in Puget Sound.
Back home in Washington State artists paint pictures of Lolita/Tokitae coming home and many write postcards, pray and do their part as best they can, as other plans are put in place in this overall movement of love, wish a request for healing. Much data can be obtained from the Orca Network website: www.orcanetwork.org. And from the Lummi Nation website: www.sacredsea.org
This compelling video gives her story: https://vimeo.com/266726774
A must read, the book “A Puget Sound Orca In Captivity – The Fight To Bring Lolita Home” by marine naturalist Sandra Pollard is the full story from that fateful day August 8, 1970 when Tokitae was so violently stolen to present day. It gives the full scope of the driving forces that wish to keep such institutions as Miami Seaquarium in place by sheer will and power, confinement and domination. And it gives hope for a happy ending even at this date and validation of the courage and persistence of the loving forces within the human race. (available at www.orcanetwork.org, amazon and Arcadia Publishing) Our planet is more ocean than it is land. The magical creatures put in those oceans by the Creator have a special place and a special song to sing in the orchestra of the cosmos. The
enslavement of these magnificent, sentient and highly intelligent creatures, who have everything natural to them stripped away is not only an assault and fracturing of their energies it is an assault and a fracturing of all of us energetically, of our oceans, of our planet, of our cosmos and of our individual souls.
