Fifty years ago a group of men surrounded a herd of more than 80 killer whales in a bay on Whidbey Island, off the coast of Washington state. Boats, explosives, nets and sticks were used, and at the end of the operation they separated the young orcas from their mothers.
Six pups were turned away and sold to water parks in all United States. Most did not survive. Only one of the killer whales captured that day is still alive. Her name is Tokitae and she has spent the last 52 years in captivity in the Miami Seaquarium, in one of the smallest swimming pools in the country. For five decades she has performed under the name “Lolita”. Earlier this year she “retired”. Now the animal rights activists are fighting for her to be freed and brought back to her mother.
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The mother is still alive
According to a reconstruction of the story made by the Guardian, the mother of the orca is still alive off the Pacific coast in the northwest of the country. She would be the leader of a pack of killer whales that eat local salmon.
Activists, philanthropists and animal rights activists from around the world denounce that its captivity is simply anachronistic, it belongs to a time when killer whales were still being sold for the enjoyment of human beings, a practice fortunately in decline.
“It is our duty to ensure that these animals can live in an environment as close as possible to their natural habitat,” explained Charles Vinick of the Whale Sanctuary project, an association that supports the release of captive killer whales around the world.
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Can it survive?
The question is obvious: can an animal that has spent decades in captivity ever return to its natural habitat? Howard Garrett is an Orca Network researcher on Whidbey Island who has been fighting for Tokitae’s liberation since 1995. To this day he is convinced that his release in the waters of origin is possible. The biggest obstacle would be the 10-hour transport to the San Juan Islands, a delicate but not impossible phase according to the scholar who points out that it would not be the first time: the killer whales have been transported to water parks for over 50 years.
If activists were to get her to be released, hers would be a rare case. Among the few precedents all remember that of Keiko, immortalized in the film “Free Willy” who lived another 5 years after her release. Keiko was 22, however, much younger than Tokitae’s fifty