The orca whale "Lolita" was captured from Penn Cove, Puget Sound, Washington, on August 8, 1970, and sold to the Miami Seaquarium (now owned by Parques Reunidos Servicios Centrales S.A.) for $20,000. Lolita is now 22-feet long and approximately 7,000 pounds, and has lived for over four decades in an enclosure measuring only 80-feet by 35-feet, with a depth of only 20-feet.
A 2017 audit by the Office of the Inspector General of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) found that Lolita's enclosure fails to comply with the space requirements defined by the agency's Animal Welfare Act regulations, and that the design of Lolita's enclosure denies her sufficient space for adequate freedom of movement. A comprehensive transport, rehabilitation, and retirement plan has been developed by Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research and Howard Garrett of the Orca Network, to bring Lolita to Eastsound, Orcas Island, in the state of Washington for rehabilitation and reintroduction into her natural habitat. This Resolution expresses Board support for the relocation and rehabilitation of Lolita to reintroduce her to her natural environment. |