MIAMI – Officials at the Miami Seaquarium provided the latest health update on their orca Lolita Tuesday as they prepare to eventually move her to her home waters in the Pacific.
Lolita, also known as “Toki” or “Tokitae,” is experiencing “stable health and improving conditions,” the Seaquarium said in a news release Tuesday.
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According to officials, Lolita is “eating well,” which includes up to 115 pounds of salmon, herring, capelin and squid each day.
Seaquarium staff members said Lolita spends most of her time swimming laps, playing with toys and soliciting attention from her trainers as they watch, work and play with her on the trainer platform.
They also confirmed Lolita’s pool has received more than $500,000 in improvements, including new chillers, filter media, an ozone generator to replace chlorine and numerous regulators and pumps.
According to officials, her water is slightly greenish because no chlorine is used to sterilize the pool, but the green color is healthy and caused by natural algae.
Her pool is cleaned three times each week and maintained at a temperature of 54-58 degrees. The pool and stadium are not open to the public, the news release stated.
The Seaquarium had announced in March that plans were underway to move Lolita to an ocean sanctuary in Washington state within the next two years.
The 57-year-old orca has lived at the stadium for 53 years. It has never met industry standards and is the second smallest whale tank in the world.
In its news release Tuesday, Miami Seaquarium officials said a team is working daily to prepare her for the move.
In the spring of 2022, The Dolphin Company partnered with the nonprofit Friends of Toki and in March made an official announcement that they were going to work together to move Toki to a seaside sanctuary in a natural sea pen in the Salish Sea, located in the Pacific Northwest near waters where she was captured as a 4-year-old calf in 1970.
“I think we’re up to the task,” Pritam Sing, co-founder, and executive director of Friends of Toki told Local 10 News in May. “I think we can do it.”
But because Toki is protected under the Endangered Species Act; both state and federal regulatory agencies would need to approve it.
But right now, the goal is the sea pen. And those lobbying for it think they can finally bring Toki back home. Albor said he hopes to give the public one last chance to see her before she goes, so “even if she is relocated, it would give the opportunity to the people to come see her and say goodbye, somehow.”
When that will happen is still the big question. Albor and “Friends of Toki” say there is a plan in place to begin to secure the Whale Stadium as best they can. A special response team has been assigned to stay with Toki should a storm threaten South Florida.
Right now, the regulatory agencies hold all the cards to green-light the sea pen and so far, there is no other concrete plan on the table.
Local 10 News anchor/ environmental advocate Louis Aguirre contributed to this story.