The new owners of the Miami Seaquarium announced Thursday an effort to release orca Tokitae, also known as Lolita, to her home waters in the Pacific Northwest after she has lived in a small tank for more than five decades.
The company said it is working toward relocating the orca, likely a member of the L pod of the endangered southern residents, in the next 18 to 24 months.
But many regulatory hurdles would need to be overcome before she could be flown home because of her protected status under the federal Endangered Species Act. And it's unclear where she would be taken and cared for after spending most of her life in captivity.
At the turn of the century, orca Keiko, who starred in "Free Willy," was reintroduced to his home waters in Iceland. He died a few years later and never reintegrated with wild orcas.
The Miami Seaquarium, which was recently purchased by the Dolphin Co., entered an agreement with Friends of Toki, a Florida nonprofit, to return Tokitae to an ocean sanctuary here. That's largely thanks to a "generous contribution" from Jim Irsay, owner of the NFL's Indianapolis Colts.
Irsay "alleviated a huge financial problem" in agreeing to fund Tokitae's journey home, said Howard Garrett, founder of the Washington state-based Orca Network. Irsay said it was not only going to be a heavy financial lift — seven or eight figures, he said — but a huge endeavor to prep her for transit home by plane.
"I know she wants to get to free waters," Irsay said at a news conference Thursday in Miami. "I don't care what anyone says. She's lived this long to have this opportunity."
By the mid-1970s, some 270 orcas were estimated to have been captured in the Salish Sea, the transboundary waters between the U.S. and Canada. At least 12 of those orcas died during capture, and more than 50 were kept for captive display.
All are now dead but one, Tokitae.
Tokitae was taken from her family in Whidbey Island's Penn Cove in 1970. She's believed to be around 57 years old. Ocean Sun, or L25, is believed to be Tokitae's mother. She is still alive.
Tokitae's advocates say her long life in captivity demonstrates she is strong enough for a journey home. Now the biggest remaining questions are whether federal agencies will sign the paperwork, where she will go and who will care for her.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Brad Hanson, a wildlife biologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who studies the southern residents, was involved with the reintroduction of Keiko.
Keiko was in rough shape when he left captivity, Hanson said. "He just looked pudgy, for lack of a better description, because he didn't really have a lot of muscle tone."
Keiko struggled to learn how to dive, Hanson said. He had spent most of his life in a shallow tank; how would he know any better?
After two years of rehab at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, Keiko had physically transformed, and moved on to spend four years living in net pens and exploring the open ocean off the coast of Iceland. He never reintegrated with other wild orcas and died in 2003. But it's hard to draw a comparison between Keiko and Tokitae, from two distinct populations of orcas with different foraging and social patterns.
In 2015, NOAA published a final rule to recognize Tokitae as a protected member of the endangered southern resident population. The southern resident orcas haven't recovered from the capture era, dwindling to just 73, one of the smallest populations since the census began.
In 2005, the southern residents were listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, and a recovery plan was finished in 2008.
Generally, they are struggling to survive in the face of at least three threats: lack of Chinook salmon in their foraging range, pollution, and underwater noise that makes it harder for them to hunt and hear each other.
Humans have choked off salmon habitat with dams and culverts. Loud boats plow through the orcas' home. The animals hunt with echolocation but the noise of cargo ships, ferries and other vessels masks the sounds they need to hear to hunt. The orcas are also absorbing the regions' industrial and municipal pollution.
An Endangered Species Act listing means delivering, receiving, carrying or shipping Tokitae in the course of a commercial activity is prohibited.
"Specific activities that we believe could result in violation of the prohibitions against 'take' include, but are not limited to, releasing a captive animal in the wild," a NOAA fact sheet states.
If the Seaquarium applies for an ESA permit from NOAA to release Tokitae, the process would include posting the permit in the federal register and a public comment period, according to NOAA.
Irsay said if Tokitae is released, she'll be under the supervision of trainers until she learns how to catch fish again. Eventually, he said, the goal would be to get her out into the open water where she might reconnect with her family.
The new coalition supporting her release hasn't yet put a price tag on the effort, he said.
The Lhaq'temish (Lummi) people's relationship with the southern residents is apparent in their language and culture. Over the years, Lummi Nation has led campaigns to free the orca, also known by her Lummi name, Sk'aliCh'elh-tenaut.
"They kept faith in their songs and prayers, their thinking and their way of life," Terry Fast Horse, who's Lummi and Lakota, said of those who led the push to bring her home.
Ellie Kinley, a Lummi mother and fisher, said there have been many dark days in the years she's been fighting alongside other Lummi people to bring Tokitae home. But it all gets easier from here, she said.
Kinley helps lead the nonprofit Sacred Sea, which was involved in identifying several potential sites for Sk'aliCh'elh-tenaut to live when she comes home.
"In a perfect world, we'd be able to bring her back to her pod," Kinley said. "But even if we could only accomplish bringing her home to the cool waters of the Salish Sea, where she will no longer be under the hot sun of Miami, she'll be in a place where she can now swim at full speed and she'll be able to dive down deep enough to get out of the sunlight.
"She's just such a strong spirit to have been able to survive this long to have been able to perform for over 50 years," Kinley said. "There is something inside of her, I think, that she's always known she was going to come home."
It can't happen soon enough, said Jay Julius, former chair of the Lummi Nation and president of nonprofit Se'Si'Le.
"Do you want to die alone caged up in a prison cell?" he said. "Or would you rather be home? In our culture and where I come from, we want to be surrounded by loved ones. And I don't think anybody wants to suffer the way she suffers and the way she's suffered over the last several decades."
For years, owners of the Seaquarium wouldn't budge on her release, but Eduardo Albor, CEO of The Dolphin Co., said in December he supported bringing her home.
A report filed by a federal veterinary medical officer in 2021 detailed multiple violations of animal care standards. Tokitae was given meager rations, fed rotten fish and forced to do high-energy jumps and tricks despite a jaw injury from fast swims, the report stated.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which monitors private aquariums, granted the former owner of the Miami Seaquarium a renewed exhibitor's license under the condition it no longer displays Tokitae. Since then, veterinarians have been working to treat Tokitae's chronic illness, and staff have added water-filtration and water-chilling systems to her tank.
For Julius, her release would represent much more than just freeing one orca.
"I think it's connected to everything," he said. "I think it's connected to the dams and the struggle for salmon. My hope is that we can come to the realization of what we've done through policy, through our way of life, through what we see as progress and development, but at the expense of what?"
