The Miami Seaquarium is a
oceanarium
An oceanarium can be either a marine mammal park, such as Marineland of Canada, or a large-scale aquarium, such as the Lisbon Oceanarium, presenting an ocean habitat with marine animals, especially large ocean dwellers such as sharks.
First ma ...
located on the island of
Virginia Key
Virginia Key is an barrier island in Miami, Florida. It is located in Biscayne Bay south of Brickell and north of Key Biscayne and is accessible from the mainland via the Rickenbacker Causeway.
The island is mainly occupied by the Virginia Key ...
in
Biscayne Bay
Biscayne Bay () is a lagoon with characteristics of an estuary located on the Atlantic coast of South Florida. The northern end of the lagoon is surrounded by the densely developed heart of the Miami metropolitan area while the southern end is la ...
,
Miami-Dade County, Florida
Miami-Dade County is a County (United States), county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Florida. The county had a population of 2,701,767 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the most populous county in ...
located near
downtown Miami
Downtown Miami is the urban city center of Miami, Florida. The city's greater downtown region consists of the Central Business District, Brickell, the Historic District, Government Center, the Arts & Entertainment District, and Park West. It ...
.
Founded in 1955, it is one of the oldest oceanariums in the United States. In addition to marine mammals, the Miami Seaquarium houses fish, sharks, sea turtles, birds, reptiles, and manatees. The park offers daily presentations and hosts overnight camps, events for boy scouts, and group programs. Over 500,000 people visit the facility annually. The park has around 225 employees, and its lease payments and taxes make it the third-largest contributor to Miami-Dade County's revenue.
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History
The park was founded by Fred D. Coppock and Captain W.B. Gray and was the second marine-life attraction in Florida. When it opened in 1955, it was the largest marine-life attraction in the world.[
The park's first orca was Hugo, named after Hugo Vihlen. Hugo was captured in February 1968 in Vaughn Bay. Shortly after his capture, Hugo was flown to the Miami Seaquarium where he was held in a small pool for two years. Over the course of 10 years, judging by his behavior, it was clear that Hugo didn't adjust to his life in captivity. Hugo would regularly bang his head against the walls of the tank. On March 4, 1980, Hugo died of a brain aneurysm.
From 1963 through 1967, eighty-eight episodes of the 1960s TV show '' Flipper'' and two movies starring Flipper were filmed at the Miami Seaquarium. From 1963 to 1991, the Seaquarium also had the Miami Seaquarium Spacerail, which was the first hanging monorail in the United States.
In 2014 Miami Seaquarium was bought by Palace Entertainment.
]
Lolita the Killer Whale
One of the Miami Seaquarium's attractions is Lolita, the second oldest orca in captivity after Corky at SeaWorld San Diego
SeaWorld San Diego is an animal theme park, oceanarium, outside aquarium and marine mammal park, in San Diego, California, United States, inside Mission Bay Park. It is owned and operated by SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment.
SeaWorld San Diego ...
. She is currently the park's only orca. Lolita was captured on August 8, 1970 during the Penn Cove capture in Puget Sound
Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected ma ...
, Washington state
Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washington ...
. She arrived at the Miami Seaquarium on September 24, 1970, where she joined the park's first orca, Hugo. Hugo died in 1980 after injuring himself along the walls of the tank where Lolita still swims. Animal rights activists have long argued that the tank doesn't meet federal minimum requirements under the Animal Welfare Act, and the USDA
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of com ...
has recently made statements in support of the activists' argument.
On January 24, 2014 the National Marine Fisheries Service
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), informally known as NOAA Fisheries, is a United States federal agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that is responsible for the stew ...
proposed amending the Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA or "The Act"; 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq.) is the primary law in the United States for protecting imperiled species. Designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of ec ...
to remove the exception that did not include Lolita as part of the ESA-listed Southern resident orcas that live in Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
and British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
waters. Activists, who proposed such an action to the NMFS in 2013, are hopeful that this might lead to a healthy retirement in a seapen and possibly an eventual release and reuniting with her pod which is believed by some to include her mother.
The Lummi Nation
The Lummi ( ; Lummi: ''Xwlemi'' ; also known as Lhaq'temish (), or ''People of the Sea''), governed by the Lummi Nation, are a Native American tribe of the Coast Salish ethnolinguistic group. They are based in the coastal area of the Pacific No ...
of Washington State refer to Lolita as Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut, or, a female orca from an ancestral site in the Penn Cove
Whidbey Island (historical spellings Whidby, Whitbey, or Whitby) is the largest of the islands composing Island County, Washington, in the United States, and the largest island in Washington State. (The other large island is Camano Island, ...
area of the Salish Sea
, image = PNW-straits.jpg
, alt =
, caption = The Salish Sea, showing the open Pacific Ocean at lower left, and from there, heading inland: the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the narrow Puget Sound at lower ri ...
bioregion. They view her as a member of their "''qwe lhol mechen''," which "'translates to ‘our relative under the water,’” according to former Lummi tribal chairman Jay Julius. She is a viewed as a member of the Lummi Nation's family, and they believe that she should be returned to the Salish Sea bioregion. The Lummi have gathered at Seaquarium numerous times to ask that Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut be returned. In 2018 Seaquarium Curator Emeritus Robert Rose responded to Lummi protests, saying that the Lummi "should be ashamed of themselves, they don’t care about Lolita, they don’t care about her best interests, they don’t really care whether she lives or dies. To them, she is nothing more than a vehicle by which they promote their name, their political agenda, to obtain money and to gain media attention. Shame on them." In response, environmental scholars and Julius have argued that such statements are representative of a troubling pattern of discounting Native American knowledge and relationships which are "part and parcel of the possessive nature of settler colonialism."
Gallery
Image:Miami Oceanarium.jpg, Lolita, the Killer Whale.
Image:Miamiseaquariumflipper.jpg, The Top Deck dolphin show at the Miami Seaquarium.
File:Flipper 1969.JPG, Dolphin named Bebe at the Seaquarium in 1969.
See also
* List of captive orcas
Orcas, or killer whales, are large predatory cetaceans that were first captured live and displayed in exhibitions in the 1960s. They soon became popular attractions at public aquariums and aquatic theme parks due to their intelligence, train ...
* SeaWorld Orlando
SeaWorld Orlando is a theme park and marine zoological park, in Orlando, Florida. It is owned and operated by SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment. When combined with its neighbor Discovery Cove and Aquatica, it forms SeaWorld Parks and Resorts Or ...
Notes
External links
{{Authority control
1955 establishments in Florida
Aquaria in Florida
Landmarks in Florida
Buildings and structures in Miami
Tourist attractions in Miami
Oceanaria in the United States
Palace Entertainment
Wometco Enterprises