The orca Lolita will be free again after 50 years. The victory of the animal rights activists

The good news is that she will be free again. The less beautiful is that it could take even two years. Surely, however, this is historic news because Lolita, the orca living for over 50 years in the Miami Aquariumwill be transferred to the open sea, even if first she will have to get used to many things again including, first of all, eat the fish it will get itselfas Nature taught her before she was imprisoned and forced to perform in front of hundreds of spectators rewarded with bites of frozen fish.

The aquarium where he has lived for 50 years has agreed to his transfer

The announcement, which is rapidly going around the world, is surprising because rarely, if ever, the structures that exploit animals for paid exhibitions such as aquariums, dolphinariums and circuses, agree to get rid of an animal that they can continue to use. But Lolita is old, she is more than 50 years old, and it has been a long time since she has been unable to jump so high as to get the applause of the payers. Maybe that’s why too Dolphin Companywhich manages the Miami Seaquarium accepted the requests that years came from animal rights organizations headed by Peta.

Aquarius has found a shoulder in Daniella Levine Cavamayor of Miami County and especially in Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts football team and wealthy animal rights enthusiast who will finance the very expensive transfer. The animal rights activists, led by the group Friends of Lolitaare obviously enthusiastic even if the project will not be easy to complete.

The costs will be borne by the owner of an American football team

THE transfer times, however they will not be very short, indeed we are talking about a period that can vary from 18 months to two years. Irsey, who is working on the project, talked about building a sanctuary off the northwest coast of the United States in the Pacific Ocean: an open sea area equipped with nets where the orca can get used to a condition of semi-freedom in view of its definitive release. It is a complex process, which provides for the presence of trainers capable of re-accustoming it to doing what it has been unaccustomed to for decades: eating independently, free swim, indulge in its natural rhythms, protect itself from the sun’s rays by immersing itself in depth. To transfer it could be necessary “the use of a 747 aircraft or a C-17 military aircraft”, specified Irsay and this would increase the costs of the operation.

Old and battered: perhaps she will at least be able to die free

Lolita has lived in the Miami aquarium since she was stolen from the sea in 1970 during a famous hunting trip which cost her and other specimens of her species life imprisonment. Trained for circus performances, she has lived since 1980, over forty years, in absolute solitude after the death of her tankmate. At the end of 2021, the United States Department of Agriculture had carried out a visit to the aquarium, establishing that Lolita’s living conditions were unsustainable and not compatible with her ethological needs. At the same time the environmental movements, among which Free Lolita, had repeatedly demonstrated for his freedom. Which at this point, it won’t be too late, it no longer appears as impossible