Dear Friends of Lolita,
This is a bit long, but it's been three weeks since the Mother's
Day demonstration, and much has happened since then to tell you about. Now
is also a good time to bring it all back to Lolita, as you'll see below in a
report by Susan Berta, who visited Toki a few days ago.
Items:
1) Mother's Day demonstration photos at:
http://www.rockisland.com/~tokitae/news/demopics.htm
2) Susan's visit to Lolita on May 23rd - what it's all about.
3) Coming demonstrations at the Seaquarium.
4) Corky/Lolita Freedom Bus moves up the west coast.
5) G.W. Carver Middle School students helping to distribute petition.
6) New documents show what the Seaquarium has known all along.
7) Hertz gives up on expansion hopes and promises a new tank, yet again
(the politics and economics).
***
1) Just in! Photos of the Mother's Day demonstration at the Seaquarium.
Go to http://www.rockisland.com/~tokitae/news/demopics.htm to see them.
These were taken by Susan Berta. If anyone has any other photos of the demo
please send them either attached to emails as .jpg's, or just mail prints
(Lolita Campaign, 920 Meridian Ave. #2, Miami Beach, FL 33139). All photos
will be returned.
2) Susan's report on her visit to Lolita (Toki) May 23rd:
I had to go see Toki before I left Miami, & was thankful I wasn't
recognized & kicked out, as was someone who'd attended the Mother's Day
Demo & later that day was denied access to the Seaquarium.
I arrived before the Whale Stadium was open, so toured some
of the rest of the park, which is small & dismal, & in desperate need of
much renovation & repair. But with a little progressive thinking & infusion
of money, the park has possibilities for an educational/interpretive/manatee
rehab facility, instead of being an outdated & low-budget marine mammal
circus. Anyone know any millionaires?!
I walked up to the edge of Toki's tank hoping to get to spend
some quality time with her before the awful antics of show biz began.
She was over by the trainer's island, with her back to me - but as soon as
I reached the edge of the pool, she immediately turned around & made a
beeline toward me! She came right up to me, & stayed there most of the
20 minutes with her nose right up to my face, only occasionally going to
the bottom of the tank or wandering very far. She would move her head to
one side, then the other, checking me out, & I'd do the same to her.
Sometimes she'd open her mouth a little & show me her teeth, or swim by
sideways with her eye up to get a better look. Once she came up close &
let out a big wet breath that sprayed me & those next to me with "whale spit",
as the little boy next to me called it! But mostly we just spent those moments
nose to nose, sharing our thoughts & hopes & fears, & giving each other
strength to continue the fight for her freedom.
I know we don't speak the same language, but I know
we were communicating & connecting. I tried to let her know
how many people are working so very hard to get her out of there.
I told her that her family had visited Penn Cove 3 times this spring. I tried
to bring her the love & energy of her family in the Northwest, both orca &
human, & to let her know she won't have to be lonely forever.
My first impression was that she was much more sociable
than when I'd seen her in March, when she'd spent most of the time at the
bottom of the tank, lying motionless. It was good to see her active &
interacting, with the people before the show (mainly me!) & with the
trainers after the show.
After the show they were doing an informal training
session, for both Toki & the dolphins, & several new trainers as well. I
had to laugh when one trainer was trying to show another trainer how to do
a certain swimming stroke, & Toki would watch first one, then the other
trainer, as they tried to get it right - then Toki did the stroke, moving
her pecs exactly like the trainer was moving her arms!
Next the new trainers practiced getting onto Toki's back in the
pool & taking a ride on her. Several of the trainers were in the pool, & most
of the dolphins were in the front part of the pool along with Toki. She swam
up & one of the trainers got on her back, & suddenly Toki just took off
across the pool at high speed & rammed the side of one of the dolphins -
which surprised everyone, I think.
Knowing there have been many reports of her spending more
time on the bottom of the tank or back in the corner of the medical pool,
it makes me wonder if she's starting to show signs of some sort of manic
depressive state. We need toget her out of there SOON!!!
Susan Berta
3) Lolita must return home soon, and to keep that message prominent at
the Seaquarium and all over Miami we are planning more demonstrations
similar to the Mother's Day demo. Dates are the second Sunday of each month
for at least the next three months - June 13, July 11, and August 8 (29th
anniversary of her capture), from Noon to 1 PM. Anyone living in South
Florida is encouraged to join in and to contact others to generate more
support for these demonstrations.
4) The FREEDOM BUS, with Corky's portrait on one side and Lolita's on
the other, is making its way from event to event heading north to Seattle,
displaying Corky's Freedom Banner at every stop. Corky was captured from the
Northern Resident community about a year before Lolita's capture and is now
held at San Diego Sea World. Both are ideal candidates for release programs.
For more on Corky, see http://www.orcalab.org.
5) Following a presentation on Lolita and her family at G.W. Carver
Middle School on May 10, students there are helping to get signatures on a
petition calling on Senator Graham to intercede on Lolita's behalf by filing
a complaint with the USDA to enforce the Animal Welfare Act, because the
tank's dimensions are unlawfully small. As mentioned, a bigger tank would be
no solution, but the extremely small size of the present tank violates the
Animal Welfare Act, according to the Humane Society of the US. The USDA
should observe the law and condemn that tank, regardless of the resulting
inconvenience to the Seaquarium.
An on-line petition to Sen. Graham may be found at:
http://www.e-thepeople.com/petition.cfm?PETID=147410. Please sign
on. The petition is automatically forwarded to Sen. Graham.
6) New documents show that the Seaquarium has known all along that
orcas use complex languages and live in tightly-bonded societies. Four pages
of sound bites written by the Seaquarium for the press and for employees to
explain all about killer whales to the public, dating to 1970, have just
been discovered. At that time the Seaquarium already had Hugo, a juvenile
male who was captured in 1968 and died there in 1980.
In 1970 the Seaquarium told the world: "The Killer Whale is highly
social. Family togetherness is a way of life." And, "Their language seems to
be quite complex." And they were aware of orcas' long lives: "One in
Australian waters whom the nearby villagers called 'Old Tom' is known to
have lived at least 80 years."
Seaquarium management had to be aware of the languages used by
orcas, because for the first eight months after Lolita was brought to Miami,
she lived in the present manatee tank, probably one quarter of the size of
the whale stadium tank, where Hugo was kept. Handlers were afraid they would
fight if put together. Nobody knew that they were both captured from the
Southern Resident community of orcas from Washington waters, and both were
members of the same extended family. Aggression was of course not likely,
but from September, 1970 to June, 1971 Hugo and Lolita communicated through
the air across about 200 yards of the Seaquarium grounds in a highly varied
array of calls, at very high volume.
But rather than learn something from this demonstration of the
complex language used by Hugo and Lolita, all references to language were
quickly dropped from public statements. The Seaquarium also now says orcas
only live to 35 years of age, that only "extremists say Lolita's family
would recognize her," and "an experiment in which speakers would be hooked
up allowing Lolita to hear and interact with whales from her original pod in
Puget Sound would not be based on science and would prove nothing." Teaser:
You'll hear more about such an experiment in the next Free Lolita Update.
Additionally, the documents reveal that the depth of the medical
pool is only 10' deep, which means it violates the Animal Welfare Act and
cannot be counted as part of the main pool, and the USDA has repeatedly
done. The Seaquarium and the USDA new claim that the medical pool is 12' deep.
7) On May 26 Arthur Hertz, owner of the Seaquarium, appeared on a TV
news program for the first time since 1995 (when he looked down on Susan
Wallace of NBC-6 in Miami and said "In real life you can't have happy
endings like you can in movies"). He announced that the Seaquarium has given
up on attempts to get an exemption from zoning regulations for a planned $70
million expansion (two appelate court decisions and the state legislature
have soundly defeated such attempts in the past five years).
Hertz also said he would nevertheless go ahead and build Lolita a
new 2.2 million gallon tank. He said construction would begin in six months.
He said he planned to get a mate for Lolita so she can have a baby.
I try not to be too cynical, but naturally some skepticism is called
for. Consider the economics of constructing a $12-15 million whale stadium,
which will not by itself increase revenues to the park, to make life easier
for a whale who is not likely to survive much longer in captivity anyway no
matter how big the tank, according to statistics, at a time when orca
captures are no longer feasible and captive populations are not increasing
(much less are there spare adult males around for breeding purposes).
Look at the largest facilities in the world - Sea World's four parks
- where eleven orcas have died since 1990. None lasted more than 20 years as
captives, and all but one male died at less than half their normal average
life expectancy of fifty years for females and thirty years for males. Since
1990, only six orcas have been born at Sea World parks. Sea World has
purchased seven orcas from other parks since 1990 just to keep their shows
going ("Orcas in Captivity" - http://members.aol.com/OrcaInfo). Throughout
the park industry orca deaths are outpacing births, so no marine park would
seem inclined to sell an orca to the Seaquarium.
Also consider that in 1996 the Seaquarium borrowed over $5 million
from City National Bank of Florida, and that for about twenty years Mr.
Hertz has been promising the public that he would build a new whale tank.
One has to doubt that there will ever be a new tank at the Seaquarium. Nor
will Sea World buy the Seaquarium because it is on county-owned property,
which Sea World won't tolerate.
The Seaquarium has managed to convince a great many people that Toki
only needs a new tank, so many people, if they believe him, may be
temporarily appeased by this promise. But it bears repeating that statistics
show that regardless of the size of the tank, orcas tend to die in their
youth in any captive facility, so an increase in the size of the tank would
not meet Toki's needs or significantly improve her situation even if the
promise was genuine.
This announcement by Mr. Hertz seems to indicate that the pressure
on the Seaquarium from grassroots efforts such as the Mother's Day demo, the
letter-writing campaigns, the recent national publicity, and possibly
pressure on the USDA, has brought him out into public view to personally
promise a new tank for Toki, even though his failure to build a new tank in
six months will further damage his credibility. Looks like the fortress
walls are beginning to crack. It's looking like the Seaquarium is ripe for a
takeover.
Please contact your friends, relatives, the media, public officials,
celebrities, potential contributors, and anyone else you think might help
bring Lolita home. And, to find a lovely Free Lolita T-shirt, bumper
sticker, audio tape of Lolita's family, or a chocolate bar, (or just to make
a credit card contribution) go to http://www.freelolita.net/merch.html. This
is a huge group effort, and we're just starting to get the Lolita campaign
rolling on a large scale. My heartfelt thanks to you all.
Howard Garrett
Tokitae Foundation
Lolita Campaign Coordinator
(305) 672-4039
[email protected]
For more on Lolita, and to hear her family and see a video of Lolita in
her tank, check out the NEW Free Lolita web site at: http://www.FreeLolita.net
and for a campaign overview, see the EVEN NEWER Lolita Come Home Page at:
http://www.rockisland.com/~tokitae/
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May 3, 1999
MOTHER'S DAY DEMO COMING UP SUNDAY, MAY 9TH AT THE MIAMI SEAQUARIUM!
The press release below was sent on Thursday, April 29. Since then
additional news has occurred, calling for another round of releases.
� Washington Secretary of State Ralph Munro has just announced that his
schedule permits him to join his wife and son on Mother�s Day, May 9th at
Noon at the Seaquarium, to express their wish that Lolita be returned to her
home waters.
� Singer/songwriter Elton John has announced that he �is most concerned with
Lolita�s situation� and is �willing to be of assistance.�
� A full-page ad for the Mother�s Day demonstration appears in the May issue
of Ocean Drive Magazine.
� The Seaquarium has abandoned its attempt to gain a legislative exemption
from zoning laws to allow its planned $70 million expansion.
The Mother's Day demonstration is sponsored by Mango's Tropical Cafe in
South Beach, Breen Catering of Fort Lauderdale, Ocean Drive Magazine, David
Rubinstein and Video Imagineering, Universal Cetacean Institute and Cetacean
Society International.
MOTHER'S DAY PROTEST AT SEAQUARIUM
SEEKS TO REUNITE LOLITA WITH HER MOTHER
Mother�s Day, Sunday May 9th, will be a just another day for Lolita, the
orca whale who has spent the last 28 years of her life in a display tank at
the Miami Seaquarium on Key Biscayne. Despite the long separation, recent
scientific evidence shows that Lolita is very capable of reuniting with her
family still living in Puget Sound, but there is a great potential for harm
by continuing to keep her captive in the smallest orca tank in the country.
Friends of Lolita are asking the Seaquarium to allow Lolita to return to
her native habitat and live out the remainder of her life as it should be;
not as a performer living in a tank. Backers of the proposal to transport
Lolita back to her home waters are coming from throughout the country,
including Karen Munro, wife of Ralph Munro, Washington Secretary of State.
The political, economic and social conditions that have kept Lolita in a
display tank in Miami for 28 years are now changing in a direction that is
favorable to her chances to go home.
The public is invited to join the peaceful demonstration from noon to 1 PM
on Mother�s Day in front of the Seaquarium. Following the demonstration
there will be a picnic lunch at Jimbo's Village on Virginia Key, where David
Wallack will perform his original song, Endangered Species, and Papaloko and
Loray Mystic will provide lively Caribbean music.
###
Howard Garrett
Dear Friends of Lolita,
Update #3
This list has more than doubled since the last posting, so we repeat the
introduction for those who have not seen it. Those who have seen it can move
down to News.
Intro:
Most of you are on this list because you asked to receive
news of the campaign to return the orca called Lolita, also
known as Tokitae, to her home waters in Washington State.
Lolita is fully capable and deserves the chance to rejoin her
family still living there. The political, economic and social
conditions that have kept Lolita in a display tank in Miami
for 28 years are now changing in a direction that is favorable
to her chances to go home.
Recent scientific knowledge and the example of Keiko tell us
that there is no real risk involved in returning Lolita to her
home waters, but there is huge risk in keeping her captive.
Lolita shows incredible strength and courage and remains in
good health and can make the transition to her native habitat.
There is much you can do to help make that trip home a
reality for Lolita.
To unsubscribe to this list, please send an email to:
[email protected]
And in the body of the message enter:
unsubscribe freelolita
Please send any ideas or news to [email protected]. If you encounter any
trouble with this list, or for details on any items, please contact:
Howard Garrett
Tokitae Foundation
Lolita Campaign Coordinator
(305) 672-4039
[email protected]
***
And now the News:
1) MOTHER'S DAY DEMO picking up steam
2) Lolita still on TV across the US - contact your local station to play it
again
3) Completely new Lolita Come Home web site set to debut
4) Jean Michel Cousteau announces Ocean Futures Society
5) Things you can do to help Lolita
1) The Mother's Day demonstration, Sunday, May 9th, from Noon to 1 PM, in
front of the Seaquarium, is gathering strength. A generous donation from the
owners of a Miami Beach tropical cafe has allowed the printing of 2500
postcards and 500 posters, plus banners and bumper stickers, plus a mass
mailing, to alert people in South Florida and elsewhere to please attend
this important demonstration. The event will be peaceful and lawful, on
public property, and will be followed by a picnic and music. Please spread
the word, and keep in mind that the campaign still needs financial help to
make it a resounding success. The Tokitae Foundation is a 501 c 3 non-profit
organization, and you can now go to a web site and help directly, at:
http://www.freelolita.net/you.html.
2) The powerful one-hour documentary "Lolita - Spirit in the Water" is still
playing all over the US, in 130 markets. Each city has the option to show
the video twice, so a little public pressure can probably accomplish that.
If you know what station in your area played it, call or write and ask them
to please play it again.
3) A team of web site technicians and designers at Microsoft is now
redesigning the Lolita Come Home Page web site
(www.rockisland.com/~tokitae). Watch this space for the debut announcement
within two weeks.
4) Ocean Futures Society, the merger of the Free Willy/Keiko Foundation and
the Cousteau Institute was announced on March 16. Jean-Michel Cousteau is
President, and Craig McCaw is chairman of the board. Ocean Futures Society
plans to bring an awareness of ocean life to the world via a stream of
educational events and the beautiful new web site at: www.oceanfutures.com.
Keiko symbolizes the world's oceans. Here's the press release:
"March 16, 1999
Free Willy Keiko Foundation and Jean-Michel Costeau Institute merge, create
Ocean Futures Society.
The Free Willy Keiko Foundation, the caretaker of the world's most famous
whale, and the Jean-Michel Cousteau Institute announced today that they have
reached an agreement to merge the two nonprofit organizations to form a new
organization called the Ocean Futures Society that will serve as a "voice for
the oceans."
5) Things you can do to help Lolita return home:
1) If you haven't already done this, please write a short (or long)
letter to Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas, 111 NW 1st St., Miami FL
33128, and ask him to use his influence to help Lolita get home. Alert him
to the fact that Miami's image is at stake.
2) Tell your friends, relatives, co-workers, hairdressers, stock
brokers or anyone else about the Lolita campaign, and add their email
addresses to the Lolita Update list.
3) Come to the Mother's Day demonstration, May 9th, 12 to 1 PM, at the
Seaquarium.
4) Contact any major celebrity or political figure you know and ask
them to say some words of encouragement that we can quote or better yet,
come to the Mother's Day demo.
5) Last October Kodak Corp. asked the Seaquarium to remove its logo
from the whale stadium but the Seaquarium has so far refused to do so.
Please contact Kodak at [email protected] to ask Kodak to reinforce their
request to the Seaquarium. The whale show narrator still claims Kodak is a
sponsor of this outmoded circus act. The CEO of Kodak is George M.C. Fisher,
343 State St., Building 7, 19th Floor, Rochester, NY 14650-0229; Ph:
716-724-4000, Fax: 716-724-9070.
Thank you for all your kind messages of encouragement and for helping
Lolita. We'll keep you informed of progress.
***
Howard Garrett
Tokitae Foundation
Lolita Campaign Coordinator
(305) 672-4039
[email protected]
For more on Lolita, and to hear her family and see a video of Lolita in her
tank, check out the NEW Free Lolita web site at www.FreeLolita.net
and for a campaign overview, see the Lolita Come Home Page:
www.rockisland.com/~tokitae/
A Review of the Releasability of Long Term Captive Orcas is at:
www.rockisland.com/~tokitae/homepage.htm
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