A protest will be held at the entrance to the Miami Seaquarium on the Rickenbacker Causeway, Biscayne Bay, to raise awareness about Lolita. The last protest held on October 11, 2008 generated national media attention for the Orca, held captive for display at the park since 1970. A four minute segment was aired on CNN Headline news. (See Lolita on CNN).

Email Shelby Prioe for more information on the demonstration. 

Shelby, in collaboration with Orca Network, invites fellow Miami residents and media to come out and support Lolita's retirement. We hope to see Lolita transported to a bay pen in her native Pacific Northwest waters where she will be taken care of for the rest of her life unless she chooses to rejoin her pod that resides in the same waters most months of every year.

She has been living in an illegal tank at the Seaquarium for the last 38 years, but now a swim with the dolphins program has become the main source of revenue for the park. This has added to the controversy about why she shouldn't be retired. The Seaquarium is not allowed and won't build her a bigger tank. No other marine park is likely to take Lolita because orcas are members of specific cultural communities (Lolita is a member of the L25 subpod of the Southern Resident clan). She probably would not adjust well to the presence of ot her captive orcas from different communities.

If retired she will initially reside in a generously sized bay pen where she will be fed, taken care of and slowly reintroduced back into the wild. After rehabilitation it will be her choice to continue to live in the pen, return occasionally for food and care, or leave to rejoin her pod.