There are a number of different organizations that over the years have devised rehabilitation and release plans for Lolita (TokiTae). Some of these plans from the outside look promising, but are they really?

It's easy to create a document, call it a plan, and get everyone on board to endorse and support it. This was the case with one organization which will go unnamed. They collected donations for decades from caring and compassionate people from around the world. They also created a seemingly well thought out release plan. Many organizations and animal advocates supported and promoted this plan, that is until recently.

Posted on Animal Legal Defense Fund November 7, 2013

Captivity Industry on Trial as ALDF Urges Protective Barriers for All U.S. Marine Theme Parks

For immediate release:

Contact:
Lisa Franzetta, Animal Legal Defense Fund
Megan Backus, Animal Legal Defense Fund
orca-southern-resident-by-miles-ritter-article-image-x2

Southern resident orca. (CC Miles Ritter)

MIAMI—Today, the national nonprofit Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) sent a formal letter to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), seeking enforcement of safety standards to protect workers from captive orcas at the Miami Seaquarium. OSHA currently relies upon the “general duty clause” of the 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act (“the Act”) to protect orca trainers from injury and death, and ALDF’s letter argues that this clause should apply to every orca exhibitor in the marine display industry, from SeaWorld to the Miami Seaquarium. Today’s letter also requests greater investigation of industry safety violations as well as full enforcement of the Act’s general duty clause which OSHA interprets to require distance between employees and captive orcas on workplace premises during performances.

January 23rd, 2013

Feds Must Protect Orca Under Endangered Species Act or Supply a Legal Reason for Exclusion, Groups Say

For immediate release

Contact:
Lisa Franzetta, ALDF
Shakira Croce, PETA

According to the settlement agreement reached after the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), PETA, the Orca Network, and four individuals filed a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) regarding the orca Lolita's unlawful exclusion from the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the agency must now either include Lolita in the ESA listing or supply a legal reason to exclude her. PETA and ALDF submitted a petition today to the NMFS calling for Lolita to be listed as endangered, along with her free-living family, the Pacific Northwest’s Southern Resident orcas. Lolita has been confined to the smallest orca tank in North America at the Miami Seaquarium for more than 40 years and has been without a companion since 1980, when her tank mate, Hugo, reportedly died of a brain aneurysm after slamming his head into the side of their concrete tank.

"By excluding Lolita from the endangered listing, the government allows the Seaquarium to keep Lolita isolated in a tiny barren tank and force her to perform with no protection from the sun—all of which would violate the ESA's protection against 'harm' and 'harassment,'" says PETA Foundation Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Delcianna Winders.

"ALDF and PETA are calling on the government to extend the ESA's minimal protections to Lolita and will continue to push for her return to the ocean and her family—where she belongs," says ALDF Executive Director Stephen Wells.

Southern Resident orcas were critically depleted in the 1960s and '70s, when dozens of them—including Lolita—were captured for public display. Captive members of a species are, by default, to be included in an endangered listing, and NMFS is prohibited from considering commercial interests—such as the Seaquarium's—in its listing decisions.

This is a heartbreaking color version and testimony of what happened in Penn Cove.