Humans Owe a Debt of Atonement to Lolita and her Endangered Orca Family
A heartbreaking story about an orca whale who mourned her dead calf has the public thinking about Lolita, the captive orca whale again.
And as Lolita reaches retirement, this time it could really make a difference – not only to her, but to her endangered family as well.
Protests have come and gone after years of campaigning to free the lonely orca who occupies a tank that is much too small for her. Lolita lost her mate several years ago and spends much of the time floating, in a listless trance.
What inspired the wake-up call this time was a story about a Southern Resident Killer Whale from Lolita’s orca whale clan. The female whale, called Tahlequah, carried her dead calf with her for 17 days across hundreds of miles, refusing to let go. Some believe this was a deliberate act of mourning, like a funeral. The story has made an impression on how people think about the emotional ties between orcas. This is important for Lolita as there are doubts over whether she will be reunited with her family when she retires, who she hasn’t seen for 47 years. Lolita still sings the songs of her Pod. At 50 years old she has spent most of her life in captivity.
Thinking about Lolita in the context of her family is really important, even if Lolita is never reunited with them. Lolita comes from a population of whales called the Southern Resident Killer Whales. After a brutal roundup in the 70s, baby whales, including Lolita, were separated from their distraught parents and taken to various entertainment parks around the country. Orca whale society is matrilineal and orca whales stay with their mothers their whole lives. Lolita has been in captivity a very long time, so there are questions over whether she would reintegrate successfully with her family, and genuine concerns about her carrying a pathogen that would harm her family. On the other hand, the closeness and deep emotional ties of orca whale society make it heartbreaking that Lolita would never return home.
Thinking about what home means for a captive whale like Lolita means we can’t ignore the fact that Lolita’s family is under threat. We as humans owe a debt to this animal population and culture, that we have stressed, threatened and dispersed. After the Southern Resident Killer Whale population were terrorized and brutalized in the 70s, their population never recovered, and their endangered species designation doesn’t do enough to protect them. It has done nothing to maintain a food source for them, for one. These whales are literally starving due to a lack of their natural food, the Chinook salmon (which is also endangered). A system of dams keeps the orcas from their food. Orca whales have been giving birth to calves who don’t survive, and all pregnancies in the last three years have failed. This doesn’t even take into account pollution and disruption from boat traffic. There are proposals to free up food sources at some of the dams, but these are moving too slowly.
We must act now to protect Lolita’s family, and to ask that genuine efforts are made to return her home where she belongs. Lolita’s freedom and our attention on this issue is nothing less than an act of atonement.
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Read More:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/free-lolita-the-killer-whale/
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article185517463.html
https://www.care2.com/causes/grieving-mother-orca-carried-her-dead-calf-for-17-days.html
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