Written by Alisa Mullins
After hearing from PETA supporters and other concerned citizens, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced this week that it is proposing to close a loophole that, until now, has denied captive chimpanzees protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). If the proposed rule is adopted and properly enforced, as PETA has advocated, Hollywood will no longer be able to force baby chimpanzees—who are torn away from their mothers, caged, and "trained" through beatings—to perform in TV shows, ads, and movies. And laboratories will stop subjecting chimpanzees to invasive, painful, and lethal experiments—a recommendation that the National Institutes of Health has already made.
© Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals
In announcing the proposed rule, the FWS concluded that "the Act does not allow for captive‐held animals to be assigned separate legal status from their wild counterparts on the basis of their captive state."
This should mean that the government now has no justification for denying PETA's petition to include Lolita—who is currently being held in solitary confinement in a cramped tank at the Miami Seaquarium—in the endangered listing of the Southern Resident orcas, the now-protected population that she was captured from more than 40 years ago.
What You Can Do
Please submit comments to the FWS asking it to finalize its proposal to classify all chimpanzees, including captives, as endangered. Then take a moment to sign our petition urging the National Marine Fisheries Service to grant Lolita the same protection from harm afforded her family in the wild. And tell everyone you know not to patronize marine abusement parks!
Written by Michelle Kretzer
Forty years is a long time to be stuck in a bathtub.
But that's reality for Lolita, an orca who has been imprisoned in the tiniest orca tank in North America—at the Miami Seaquarium—since she was captured and torn away from her family more than four decades ago. She has no other orcas for companionship.
But two of Latin America's brightest stars have set their sights on freeing Lolita, and they won't stop until she has been liberada.To show the Seaquarium that they mean business, actor and TV host Natalia Villaveces and her friend actor Patricia De León led a spirited bilingual protest at the Seaquarium.
Natalia also released a new public service announcement in English and Spanish urging everyone to boycott attractions in which marine mammals are held captive. "They [are] forced to swim in circles and perform meaningless tricks for people who probably have no idea how sad and miserable they are," she said.
Please join Natalia, Patricia, and animal advocates around the world in spreading the message that marine-mammal parks are where happiness tanks.
Written by Jeff Mackey
The National Marine Fisheries Service has found that the information provided in a petition submitted by PETA, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, and the Orca Network may warrant the inclusion of lonely orca Lolita in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) listing of the Southern Resident orcas, the family she was taken from more than 40 years ago.
DrTH80 | cc by 2.0
Orcas are members of the dolphin family. They are also the largest animals held in captivity. In the wild, orcas stay with their mothers for life.
The cruel exclusion from the safeguards against harm and harassment afforded by the ESA has allowed the Miami Seaquarium to hold Lolita in the smallest orca tank in North America without any others of her species for company. The agency will now have nine months to determine whether Lolita's illegitimate and inexplicable omission from her family's listing should be reversed.
The decision to review Lolita's exclusion is an important step toward ensuring that she will finally receive the same protection offered to her family members, which could eventually lead to her being reunited with her pod in the ocean, where her mother still thrives at more than 80 years of age. Otherwise, the government must provide a legally permissible reason why it won't include her, which it failed to do previously—and which PETA believes doesn't exist.
How You Can Help
Orcas, dolphins, and other marine mammals belong in the sea, not the Seaquarium. Please never visit any marine park or aquarium where these smart, social, and sensitive animals are held captive.
Update 2: Fulfilling their part of the settlement agreement that was reached following the filing of the lawsuit described below, PETA and the Animal Legal Defense Fund have submitted their petition to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) asking for Lolita to be included in the Endangered Species Act listing of the Southern Resident orcas.
To uphold its end of the agreement, NMFS must reconsider Lolita's endangered status and include her in the listing or provide a legally permissible reason why it won't—as the service failed to do when it listed the Southern Residents. An endangered listing for Lolita would prohibit the Miami Seaquarium from harming and harassing her by forcing her to perform in an unlawfully small tank and could ultimately lead to her rejoining her 85-year-old mother and the rest of her pod.
Update: We have a promising development to report. Following the filing of our lawsuit, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has agreed to reconsider its exclusion of Lolita from the Endangered Species Act listing of the Southern Resident orcas—the family from which she was taken more than 40 years ago.
Under this agreement, PETA and the Animal Legal Defense Fund will submit a new petition asking for Lolita to be included in the listing, and NMFS must make a decision based solely on the biological status of the orcas—whether the population is threatened or endangered—within the legally required time frame. The time has come for the government to give Lolita the same protection offered to her family in the wild and reunite her with her pod, whose calls she recognized when they were played to her even after decades in captivity!
Originally posted August 23:
PETA, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, and other plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the illegal exclusion of Lolita—an orca captured as a calf in 1970 who has since been held captive and forced to perform at the Miami Seaquarium—from protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) are appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit following a lower-court dismissal earlier this month.
jc.winkler|cc by 2.0Orcas are members of the dolphin family. They are also the largest animals held in captivity. In the wild, orcas stay with their mothers for life.
Without explanation, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) excluded Lolita when it classified the southern resident orca population as endangered, giving it protection from being harmed or harassed under the ESA. Lolita has been without an orca companion since 1980 and lives in a much too small tank that doesn't even meet minimal federal standards.
Both the federal government and the Seaquarium filed motions to dismiss the suit brought against NMFS for excluding Lolita from the endangered listing, and the lower-court judge ruled in their favor on technical grounds—despite the fact that all necessary procedures were carefully followed—without reaching the merits of the case. But Lolita deserves her day in court, and PETA won't rest until she's released into a seaside sanctuary in her home waters.
The fight to free Lolita, the lone captive orca at the Miami Seaquarium, continues: PETA, the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), the Orca Network, and private citizens concerned about Lolita's living conditions have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), challenging its outrageous decision to renew the Seaquarium's federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) license.
The AWA, which the USDA is charged with enforcing, prohibits licensing a facility that is out of compliance with the act. Yet the Seaquarium keeps Lolita without the company of another orca in a tank so small that it fails to meet the minimum legal size requirements and also offers no protection from the burning sun—all violations of the law.
In nature, where Lolita's mother still thrives at more than 80 years of age, orcas live in tight family units, with bonds that may last a lifetime. At the Seaquarium, Lolita swims in endless circles in a tiny barren cement tank. This highly intelligent and social wild animal has been without an orca companion since 1980, when her tank mate, Hugo, died of a brain aneurysm after reportedly ramming his head into the side of their tank, in what many believe to be a desperate attempt to break out of the tank—or even commit suicide.
© Terrell C. Newby, Ph.D.Lolita was violently captured during a roundup of the now-endangered Southern Resident killer whales off the coast of Washington State's Whidbey Island.
Please send a polite e-mail to Dr. Elizabeth Goldentyer, eastern regional director of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the USDA, asking that the agency revoke the Miami Seaquarium's exhibitor license. Also, never, ever visit any marine park or aquarium.
PETA Files readers know that SeaWorld hurts animals, so PETA's new website, SeaWorld of Hurt aims to return the favor, hurting the marine mammal prison by showing people that its parks are no fun for animals.
SeaWorld's cruelty to animals was widely publicized during PETA's landmark lawsuit in behalf of captive orcas, which broke legal ground and gave rise to the idea that all species deserve protection from slavery. Our lead counsel, Jeff Kerr, recently presented PETA's argument for the release of enslaved orcas at the Superpod conference on San Juan Island, a meeting of orca advocates scheduled to coincide with the annual gathering of the "J," "K," and "L" pods of the Southern Resident orca population.
Animal advocates discussed efforts to secure freedom for marine mammal prisoners, including PETA's lawsuit on behalf of Lolita, an orca captured in 1970 who continues to languish in solitary confinement at the Miami Seaquarium, despite the fact that her pod has since been given protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Meanwhile, we're moving the conversation from the courtroom to the chat room, aiming to educate would-be SeaWorld patrons and make the parks' profits sink like a rock.
Join us! Ask the Blackstone Group—the company that owns SeaWorld—to release the orcas to ocean sanctuaries that can provide them with an environment that is closer to what nature intended, and post PETA's action alert to your social-networking pages.
Despite the endangered-species status of the southern resident orcas, the federal government is refusing to offer imprisoned orca Lolita the same protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) that the rest of her family pod enjoys.
Rojer | cc by 2.0
You may recall that the National Marine Fisheries Service classified Washington state's southern resident orca population as endangered, giving it protection from being harmed or harassed under the ESA, but without explanation, it excluded Lolita, who was captured from the pod as a calf and has been held prisoner and forced to perform for the last 42 years. PETA called foul on the unlawful double standard and filed suit on Lolita's behalf, joined by the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), Washington residents, and a former employee of the Miami Seaquarium, where Lolita is held captive.
The Miami Seaquarium and the federal government filed motions to get the case dismissed, and the judge acquiesced on timing grounds—he didn't address the merits of the case—meaning that the Miami Seaquarium can continue to confine Lolita to the smallest orca tank in North America (the orca equivalent of a bathtub), prevent her from interacting with any members of her own species, deny her appropriate protection from the sun, and force her to perform silly tricks. But PETA and the ALDF are already regrouping and planning our next move, and the lawsuit's dismissal is merely a hitch in our efforts to see Lolita released into a seaside sanctuary in her home waters.
Please send a polite e-mail to Eric C. Schwabb, assistant administrator for fisheries, urging him to give Lolita her rightful protection under the ESA.
When the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) listed the Southern Resident killer whale population as endangered, affording them protection from being harmed or harassed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the agency left out one lone orca.
Lolita was captured from the Southern Resident population off the coast of Washington in 1970 as a calf and has been held captive in a tiny cement tank—forced to perform at the Miami Seaquarium—ever since. NMFS cited these captures as the likely reason for the population's decline, yet it still denied protection to Lolita, the only surviving victim.
Together with the Animal Legal Defense Fund, local residents, and a former Seaquarium employee, PETA filed a lawsuit against NMFS in Lolita's behalf alleging that her exclusion from the ESA was unlawful. If we are successful, the Miami Seaquarium will be prohibited from harming or harassing her—and PETA could then try for precedent-setting improvements for Lolita, such as a larger tank, no more forced performances, or even release to a sea pen in her native waters.
While we go after marine-mammal abusers in the courtroom, you can go after them at the bank by refusing to fund this cruelty with your admission fee. Please also click here to send a polite e-mail to Eric C. Schwaab, assistant administrator for fisheries, asking that the agency ensure that Lolita is given the protection that she is rightfully due under the Endangered Species Act.
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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