VIRGINIA KEY, Fla. – A protest is underway at Miami Seaquarium in the latest call to free Lolita, the 20-foot-long, 7,000-pound orca who has lived at the Miami tourist attraction for 50 years.
Activists say the tank in which the whale lives is not fit for her size.
“She needs us to speak for her,” said Patty Leon, a protester with the group the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
The indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest said that under their inherent rights, the whale belongs to them.
In October 2018, a federal appeals court rejected a petition to reopen a lawsuit over the Seaquarium’s treatment of the killer whale.