Protesters to Descend On Seaquarium on 45th Anniversary of Lone Orca’s Capture

PETA’s ‘Orca’ Mascot Will Lead Call to ‘Free Lolita Now!’

For Immediate Release:
August 7, 2015

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Forty-five years after Lolita was captured from her family in Puget Sound during a traumatic and violent whale hunt—and 35 years after her last tank mate, Hugo, died from injuries sustained when he purposely rammed his head into the tiny tank’s concrete wall in an apparent suicide—PETA supporters, led by a costumed “orca,” will gather outside the Miami Seaquarium to demand that lonely Lolita be released into a seaside sanctuary.

Where:           Miami Seaquarium park entrance on Rickenbacker Causeway, 4400 Rickenbacker Cswy., Key Biscayne

When:             Sunday, August 9, 12 p.m.

“In the name of common decency and kindness, these decades of captivity and isolation from others of her kind must end for this lonely orca,” says PETA Foundation Director of Animal Law Jared Goodman. “PETA is calling on people to shun the Miami Seaquarium in order to compel this business to send Lolita into coastal sanctuary retirement, allowing her to swim and communicate with the family members who are waiting for her in her ocean home.”

Since 1970, Lolita has been suffering in what PETA believes are illegal conditions: She is trapped in the smallest orca tank in North America without protection from the sun, and since 1980, she has had no contact with anyone else who speaks her language. PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—has joined prominent Miamians and concerned people from around the world in calling for Lolita to be transferred to a seaside sanctuary that’s waiting for her in her home waters, where she could interact with her family pod—including the orca believed to be her mother, who is still thriving in her 80s.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.