Lolita Update #147
Multi-city actions for Lolita
March 15, 2017

Dear Friends of Lolita~

Worldwide Rallies to Retire Lolita

2017 Miracle Marches for Lolita in London, Miami, Seattle, California, Las Vegas & New Hampshire!
Please check the Facebook links below for details and how you can join a rally near you.

March 31:
London

April 1:
Miami

Solidarity Events April 1st:
Seattle, WA
Newport Beach, CA
Las Vegas, NV
Portsmouth, New Hampshire

As announced by Bruce Coughlan, singer/songwriter of the sweet and powerful Bring Lolita Home, Pacific Northwest recording artists Tiller’s Folly and The Wilds have united in an effort to support advocacy groups who are organizing the Miracle Marches for Lolita across the globe, and mobilizing thousands of volunteers through the weeks leading up to April 1st.

To hear this haunting song in the full production video, please visit Artists for Orcas and scroll down to the top post, starting with:

And, In the wild, they don’t solve their problems aggressively. It’s not normal. Killer whales travel in kinship groups or clans and they don’t have those aggressive interactions. If other whales come along from a different group, they just avoid each other. Obviously, you can’t do that in a tank. - Kenneth Balcomb/Center for Whale Research

As one commenter says: "This is so beautiful, I'm in a flood of tears, Lolita my heart will always be with you, I pray we can get you home to your family,"

In other news...

Florida residents - please sign & share to support The Florida Orca Protection Act! The bill doesn't help Lolita/Tokitae directly but it makes it illegal to bring any more orcas into the state of Florida, and it prohibits breeding captive orcas or transporting them out of state, unless to a seaside sanctuary (which is a very good addition to the bill), and would phase out orca performances, much like California's Orca Protection and Safety Act signed into law in September 2016. It is essential that this bill passes and we never have another generation of captive orcas like Lolita suffering in tanks.
* On March 9 the Vancouver Park Board voted unanimously to prohibit the importation of more cetaceans into the Vancouver Aquarium. As Sandra Pollard, author of Puget Sound Whales for Sale, remarked: This is a great victory, though we cannot afford to take our eye off the ball. A similar bylaw was passed unanimously in 1996 and watered down 2-months later - 4 more dolphins were imported. But for now we rejoice... This has been a long, hard fought battle.
* On March 6 it was announced that PETA Buys Stock in Miami Seaquarium’s Parent Company. This gives them a voice among stockholders to add awareness of Lolita's plight and some ideas for how to resolve the issue for everyone's benefit.
* Speaking of stockholders and parent companies, the ultimate ownership of the Seaquarium seems to be shifting from an investment house in the UK and toward the conglomerate of water-themed parks in the US and Europe called Parques Reunidos, based in Spain. However, the investment house still has a large role to play in major decisions, such as when to allow Lolita/Tokitae to return to her home waters. Such a decision would acknowledge the shift in public opinion toward rejecting display of captive whales and dolphins. Allowing Lolita to return to a protected seapen in her native Pacific Northwest for rest, recuperation, and retirement would be a momentous decision with profound implications for the entire display industry, so it won't come easily. Ongoing legal efforts - there are two pending cases expected to have court dates sometime this spring or summer - can mandate such a big decision, but participation by the Seaquarium would be needed to make the transport as smooth and stress-free as possible.

JUST PUBLISHED! Paperback Now Available!
Full-Color Illustrations. For ages 8 and up.

Lolita Loves the Ocean: The Story of a Wild Orca
by Gina Sequeira

Sold by Amazon in the U.S, Canada, the U.K, Australia, and in major countries where Amazon operates.

Bulk discounts available for 10 or more books. Please contact Gina Sequeira at ginaartbooks@gmail.com or via Messenger.

Most of profits will be donated to Orca Network (orcanetwork.org) for Lolita’s fund to return home, and other non-profit cetacean conservation organizations working to rehabilitate and free captive orcas, whales, and dolphins to protected sea sanctuaries or back to the wild.

“LOLITA LOVES THE OCEAN is a wonderful and most timely book. Youngsters are ambassadors for the future, and this inspirational story will surely motivate them to do more for the nonhuman animals with whom we share our wondrous planet. I can well see how Lolita's story also will have global appeal for older readers.”
— DR. MARC BEKOFF, Author of REWILDING OUR HEARTS: BUILDING PATHWAYS OF COMPASSION AND COEXISTENCE, and author or editor of 30 other books on animal behavior and protection.

“This book is an amazingly detailed and accurate portrait of Toki's real life, and the traumas and tragedies she has had to live through. I hope it will show people of all ages, but especially young teens, how captivity for entertainment devastates real orca persons, with real homes and families."
— HOWARD GARRETT, Orca researcher and co-founder of Orca Network

Based on true events, LOLITA LOVES THE OCEAN: THE STORY OF A WILD ORCA, offers both children and adults a vivid insightful account of the life of Lolita or Toki, the second oldest captive orca in the world, surviving in the U.S at Miami Seaquarium, Florida. Wildlife researcher GINA SEQUEIRA embarks readers on an intimate journey of the ways of wild orcas, and onto Lolita’s mental and physical struggle as a prisoner. Accompanied by dynamic illustrations from former San Francisco Academy of Art instructor CHRISTOPHER NEWHARD and SEQUEIRA, Lolita’s story may be told transparently without words.

LOLITA LOVES THE OCEAN uncovers the remarkable deep love among orca families, invites us to rethink our connection or lack thereof with cetaceans, and to expand our perception of them from outside the concrete box.

An extensive epilogue provides more scientific information including the current welfare of the Southern Resident orcas (SRKWs) of the Pacific Northwest, and The Center for Whale Research’s plan for “Toki’s Journey Back Home” to her 88 year-old mother, Ocean Sun, the powerful yet gentle matriarch and leader of her family pod.

Written for ages 8 and up, SEQUEIRA inspires us to ponder the question of whether we are helping or harming fellow non-human animals, and to examine our interactions with all animals in terms of respect, morality and compassion for the natural world.

Much is going on to help bring Lolita home and to inform and advocate for her and her family Please consider a tax-deductible contribution to help Orca Network continue this work. Thank you!