More than 50 years after being captured in the Pacific Ocean and held for decades at the Miami Seaquarium, Lolita the Orca could soon be returned to “home waters” to live out the rest of her days.
Lolita’s fate is expected to be announced at a news conference on Thursday held by the Miami Seaquarium, along with Florida non-profit Friends of Lolita and philanthropist and owner of the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts Jim Irsay, NBC Miami reported.
“I’ll be at a big press conference in Miami on Thursday at 11:30am for a HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT about the future of LOLITA the orca,” Irsay wrote in a tweet earlier this week. The Miami Seaquarium retweeted a post on the expected announcement.
The Miami Seaquarium did not immediately respond to an overnight request for comment from NBC News.
Lolita, also known as Toki, was pulled from the waters of Washington state in 1970 when she was around four years old, according to NBC Miami. The orca, now believed to be around 57, is the oldest to be held in captivity.
Lolita had fallen ill in recent years, with the company taking over the Miami Seaquarium, MS Leisure, announcing last year that the roughly 7,000-pound orca would no longer be put on display in the whale stadium.
At the time, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said she was “hopeful that this transfer of ownership will usher in an era of accountability.”
In June, an independent assessment found that Lolita’s condition had improved.
Puget Sound orcas were added to the endangered species list in 2005, but captive animals, such as Lolita, are excluded from protection.
Animal rights activists have for years advocated for Lolita to be moved back to her home pod in Puget Sound, with groups like PETA taking the Seaquarium to court over the orca’s captivity.
“If Lolita is finally returned to her home waters, there will be cheers from around the world, including from PETA, which has pursued several lawsuits on Lolita’s behalf and battered the Seaquarium with protests demanding her freedom for years,” PETA Foundation Vice President and General Counsel for Animal Law Jared Goodman said in a statement Tuesday.
“If the Seaquarium agrees to move her, it’ll offer her long-awaited relief after five miserable decades in a cramped tank and send a clear signal to other parks that the days of confining highly intelligent, far-ranging marine mammals to dismal prisons are done and dusted,” Goodman said.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
