PETA to Unfurl Giant ‘Free Lolita’ Banner Over I-95
Protesters Will Also Descend on the Miami Seaquarium to Push for Imprisoned Orca’s Release
For Immediate Release:
February 18, 2021
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
In a double whammy against the Miami Seaquarium’s imprisonment of the orca Lolita, PETA protesters will hang an enormous 30-foot banner from a busy overpass on I-95 during morning rush hour on Friday calling for her release—and then they’ll head to the park just as it’s opening to urge people to stay away.
When: Friday, February 19, 8:15 a.m.
Where: N.W. 14th Street and I-95 S., Miami (banner drop)
When: Friday, February 19, 10 a.m.
Where: Miami Seaquarium, 4400 Rickenbacker Cswy., Miami (park protest)
Lolita was abducted from the ocean and her family and has been held at the Miami Seaquarium—in the smallest orca tank in the world—for 50 years. She is denied the opportunity to dive, swim much farther than the length of her body, seek shelter from the blazing Florida sun, or form social relationships with others of her own species. The other orca once kept in the same tank, Hugo, died after repeatedly ramming his head into a wall in 1980. Lolita displays repetitive and abnormal behavior indicating severe mental anguish.
“The Miami Seaquarium’s decades-long imprisonment of Lolita is unconscionable,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on the park to end her torment and retire her to a seaside sanctuary now.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
