MIAMI— Activist groups have lost their latest battle in a decades-long fight to free an orca named Lolita from the Miami Seaquarium after a federal appeals court rejected a petition to reopen a lawsuit over the Seaquarium’s treatment of the captive killer whale.
Lolita, a southern resident killer whale, lives in the country’s smallest orca aquarium, and has been the Seaquarium’s star attraction since she was captured off Puget Sound in 1970.
The decision issued Tuesday by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit said that Lolita’s age — around 51 — makes the case “unique,” but there’s no threat of serious harm that could trigger a federal animal welfare law violation. The court also couldn’t identify a “realistic means” to return her to the wild without the animal being harmed.
Jared Goodman, general counsel for animal law for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a party to the lawsuit, said the ruling sentences Lolita to “a lifetime of physical and psychological harm.”
Seaquarium is a popular tourist attraction on Virginia Key, where Lolita has lived since her capture. At 80 feet by 60 feet and 20-feet deep, her tank is the smallest orca aquarium in the country.
Her endangered status means that any move would require a permit from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. While orcas can live up to 80 years in the wild, the median life expectancy is considered between 38 and 50 years old.
Inspired by the story of Keiko, the whale in the 1993 movie Free Willy, activists have been waging a high-profile battle to release Lolita for more than two decades.
Information for this report was contributed by the Associated Press and the Miami Herald.