Lolita the Orca - Miami Seaquarium

The story of her capture was just tragic especially killing almost the whole pod she was with by tying anchors to the orcas and leaving them there to drown, and not to mention that they shot some of them, and Lolita's mother drowned herself.

Over 40 years ago when the governments at that time were planning to cull killer whales as a pest species with mounted machine guns so I think some historical perspective has to be applied to this story if it is actually true. Fortunately this would now be rightly illegal and probably in part to people seeing these animals in aquariums.

Awesome photo! And Toki (the whale, otherwise known as "Lolita" by most visitors) can get even higher! This is a good angle.

Eh sorry for my double post, and sorry if I am bringing up and old conversation. Lol. I am brand new on this forum.

This is entirely inaccurate in fact. The captors did not kill most of the pod. Out of the many confined within nets, I believe it was only around 5 or 6 that passed. They were dead before they were sunk with anchors. (Not that any of this makes it okay). And There is no way to know that Lolita's mother drowned. Much less that she killed herself. There are some people that believe an orca who is still alive and labled as "L-25" is her mother. But again, there is no way to know.

And I would say to that "same difference".

Well not really. If the captors had killed most of the whales, there would probably be no PNW orcas today, or they would be critically endangered. They are already suffering from many environmental problems, so it's good that they have the numbers they do.

I have followed Lolita's plight for a while. It astounds me that people still think that Miami Seaquarium is a great day out after seeing Lolita stuck in that bath tub all day. Ugh.

Hi John,

Thanks for the reply. Do you think it is a matter that Seaworld dont want the headache of having an unsocial whale? In my humble opinion, knowing nothing about whales or marine mammal behaviour, I think she should be moved regardless. If she was to die she would be put out of her misery and if she didn't (as i strongly believe she wouldn't) I genuinely believe her social instinct would take over and she could be integrated into the pod, even with one or two of the whales there.

I think this whales makes too much money where she is and that it would cost too much money to move her else where and that is why she is where she is and is likly to stay for the rest of her days.

I have seen hand reared monkeys that have never even seen another monkey be integrated back into social groups. Instinct is something that cannot be suppressed.