After being abducted for 53 years, she almost saw her mother - but she died

On August 18, the Miami Seaquarium in the United States announced on social media that the captive killer whale Tokitae died on Friday afternoon due to kidney problems.

Tokitae eventually failed to leave the aquarium｜miamiseaquarium

Tokitae (Toki) was one of the longest-lived captive killer whales - she was captured at the age of 4, lived in a small pool for 53 years, and performed more than 30,000 performances. In March this year, the aquarium announced that it would arrange for her to be released, not only to return to the wild, but also to reunite with her mother after more than half a century .

However, Tokitae could not wait for the sea, freedom, family, hometown...

Bloody capture and stolen freedom

Toki's capture was quite bloody. On August 8, 1970, Edward "Ted" Griffin, the owner of the Seattle Oceanarium and the most notorious killer whale trafficker, led a fleet to hunt more than 70 southern resident killer whales in the Penn Cove area of ​​Puget Sound in Washington State.

This wild capture not only took away Toki and six other killer whales, but also caused the death of an adult female killer whale and four killer whale calves . Moreover, the adult female was entangled in a fishing net while trying to rescue her baby, and was unable to float up to breathe and drowned. In order to conceal their tracks, Griffin and his accomplices cut open the stomachs of the five whale carcasses, stuffed them with stones, tied heavy objects to their tail fins, and left them in the sea.

Three months later, the carcasses were washed up on Whidbey Island, and the cruel truth about killer whale capture was exposed to the public for the first time.

However, after Tokitae's death, Griffin said in an interview that he did not regret his whaling behavior. | Wallie Funk / Western Washington University

This roundup is just a microcosm of the capture of wild whales and dolphins. In the 1960s and 1970s, the captive whale and dolphin industry developed rapidly in North America. At that time, whaling activities on the west coast of North America were completely unregulated, and killer whales, as iconic animals, became the target of whaling activities.

Between 1965 and 1977, more than 260 killer whales were hunted in the northeastern Pacific Ocean, from British Columbia in the north to the Gulf of California in the south, affecting three groups of southern resident killer whales, J, K, and L. Among them, 50 were selected by the oceanarium and taken from the group . By 1976, there were only 80 southern resident killer whales left in the area.

Without perfect regulations, the aquarium will not let these animals go as long as it is profitable｜Wallie Funk / Western Washington University

The cruel capture of whales and dolphins has, to a certain extent, promoted legislation in the U.S. Congress. In 1972 and 1973, the U.S. Congress passed the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act, respectively. According to these two laws, southern resident killer whales are endangered species and face the risk of extinction; any "harassment, injury, pursuit, hunting, shooting, injury, killing, trapping, capture, collection, or attempt to do so" of endangered species is illegal. Since then, the capture of killer whales in North America has finally been effectively controlled.

However, as long as it is profitable, the aquarium will not let these creatures go. **After whaling was banned in North America, killer whales in Icelandic waters were targeted. **Tilikum, the killer whale who killed three trainers while in captivity, Keiko, the killer whale who gained attention for starring in the movie "Orca", and Kiska, the "loneliest killer whale in the world" who never got free, were all killer whales that were captured in the wild in Icelandic waters when they were young and then sold to aquariums.

53 years in captivity, 36,000 performances

Let’s talk about Toki.

Although the US Congress passed the bill, it could not protect Toki and other killer whales that had already been captured. In September 1970, Toki was sold to the Miami Oceanarium and renamed "Lolita", a name that was invested with countless human gazes and objectification.

It was kept in a 24-meter-long, 11-meter-wide, and 6-meter-deep captive pool called the "Whale Bowl," and began performing day after day - two shows a day, all year round. As of 2021, Toki has performed more than 36,000 times .

The "whale bowl" where Tokitae lives is 24 meters long and 11 meters wide. She cannot freely enter or exit the water area enclosed by the platform｜Drones for Animal Defense

In 2021, the Miami Seaquarium was acquired by MS Leisure, a subsidiary of The Dolphin Company. When the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a new business license, one of the conditions was that Toki and Li'i, a Pacific white-sided dolphin in the same pool, stop performing. Toki finally ended his 51-year career of being forced to perform .

Toki was the longest-lived southern resident killer whale captured in the wild at that time. However, as one of the longest-lived killer whales in captivity , Toki's tenacity and strength only serve to highlight her misery and loneliness.

During her 53 years of captivity, her entire world was confined to the "Whale Bowl" of the Miami Seaquarium. The depth of this enclosure pool is 6 meters, but the water level is often less than 4 meters, and there are even records of 3 meters of water depth; the pool also contains a performance platform, and Toki cannot enter and exit the area behind the platform freely. Therefore, for Toki, her actual living area is a space with an area of ​​less than 200 square meters and a water depth of only about 4 meters - and its body length exceeds 6 meters and weighs more than 3 tons.

Toki is performing. You can clearly see how cramped the "whale bowl" is for the huge killer whales.｜AP

Loneliness and pain in the cement pool

In addition to performances, the Miami Oceanarium purchased Toki and also wanted her to participate in breeding .

In 1968, the Miami Oceanarium purchased a 3-year-old male southern resident killer whale, Hugo, and kept him in the current manatee pool. The water in this pool is so shallow that once Toki raises his head to eat fish, his tail fin has to be left at the bottom of the pool. After Toki arrived, the staff often heard the two of them calling to each other at night. After confirming that they could get along well, the oceanarium put Hugo in the "whale bowl" where Toki lived, hoping that they could reproduce.

Tokitae and Hugo squeezed into the already narrow "Whale Bowl" and performed together｜Miami Seaquarium

However, the overly cramped living environment and the daily high-pressure and autonomous captive performances have tortured every killer whale. Toki and Hugo both need to take large amounts of antibiotics, antifungals, analgesics (including anesthetics), steroids, hormones and antacids to treat ulcers and other diseases caused by captivity. Even though there are records showing that Toki was once pregnant, she did not give birth to any surviving calves.

The killer whale Hugo was named after a sailor named Hugo Vihlen.

In 1968, this sailor set a record for the smallest sailboat to cross the Atlantic alone, and it took him 85 days to cross the Atlantic. In the same year, a 3-year-old male killer whale was captured from the waters of Washington State, put in a seaside pen and forced to learn to eat bait, and finally sent to the cement pool of the Miami Seaquarium 5,500 kilometers away. The process also took 85 days. Ironically, people decided to name a killer whale that had lost its freedom and could never return to the sea after this sailor who sailed in the vast ocean .

Toki and Hugo lived together in the "Whale Bowl" for 10 years until Hugo died on March 4, 1980. Even though the "Whale Bowl" was a newly built pool at the time, it was far from what killer whales really needed, and the large animals trapped in it suffered physically and mentally.

As early as 1971, Hugo was observed to frequently hit the pool wall . He even smashed an observation window, and the plastic fragments almost scraped off a large piece of flesh on his snout, which had to be sutured surgically. Hugo also showed strong aggressive behavior . Killer whale performances in the 1970s particularly emphasized that humans could control these beasts, and they loved to stage the show of trainers putting their heads into the mouths of killer whales. One trainer was bitten on the neck and head by Hugo. He also hit trainers in the water with his head and bit a human arm.

The trainer puts his head into Hugo's mouth｜Miami Seaquarium

The continuous impacts, especially the impact of the head on the pool wall and fence , may have caused Hugo's brain to become congested and develop a traumatic cerebral aneurysm - this was also the result of Hugo's autopsy after his death.

Hugo only lived to be 15, less than a quarter of his lifespan in the wild . Despite having worked for the Miami Seaquarium for 12 years, Hugo was simply hoisted by a crane and thrown into a landfill after his death.

Crane lifts dead Hugo out of the aquarium｜Miami Seaquarium

After Hugo, Toki also lived in the same pool with a pilot whale, a Richter's dolphin, a short-beaked dolphin and several Pacific white-sided dolphins. This seemed to give Toki some degree of "socialization", but it also artificially created more friction and aggressive behavior between animals .

Living in the same pool is not an independent choice of any animal, but is entirely arranged by humans. In captivity, animals are already under great pressure, and the extremely scarce living space is further compressed, leaving no room to hide from each other, so conflicts can easily break out between animals . Toki often has signs of being bitten by dolphins on his body, and some scholars have even recorded more than 50 new bite marks on him in a year. Aggressive behavior is also bidirectional. A Pacific white-sided dolphin that was kept in captivity in the "Whale Bowl" from 2018 to 2021 is presumed to have died from an attack by Toki.

In addition to Tokitae, there are other whales and dolphins in the "Whale Bowl"｜Ingrid N. Visser

The backlash against whale and dolphin captivity

In recent years, with the public's increased awareness of animal welfare and the in-depth study of cetaceans by the academic community, people have reached a consensus on the negative impacts of capturing, keeping, breeding and performing cetaceans in the wild, which has brought hope for Tokitae to return home.

In 2003, the documentary "Lolita: Slave to Entertainment" allowed many people to see the desperate life of the killer whale Toki in captivity; the documentary "The Cove" in 2009 exposed the bloody reality of the global whale and dolphin capture and captive trade. Whether online or offline, the voices calling for an end to whale and dolphin captivity are gradually spreading , and the law on endangered species protection is gradually being improved.

Documentary "Lolita: Slave to Animal Entertainment"

In 2017, Toki’s hopeless captive life finally came to a turning point. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reviewed Toki’s enclosure and found that all standards did not meet the minimum requirements of federal law . It then conducted a thorough investigation of Toki and other cetaceans in the Miami Seaquarium.

In September 2021, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a detailed investigation report documenting Toki's health problems , including being fed spoiled bait, being overworked and injured by being required to perform high-intensity, explosive performances, being sunburned due to lack of shelter, and having his eyes injured by excessive chlorine content in the pool and foreign objects. By February 2022, Toki had also developed severe pneumonia, one of the most common causes of death in captive cetaceans.

As attention grew, last year, a non-profit organization, Friends of Toki, Inc., was established for Toki. As an independent partner, Friends of Toki worked with the Miami Seaquarium and the local government to develop and implement a welfare improvement plan for Toki and prepare for his retirement and release into the wild.

Finally, on March 30 this year, The Dolohin Company, the parent company of the Miami Seaquarium, reached an agreement with the "Friends of Toki" to return Toki to his birthplace: the Salish Sea in steps over the next 18 to 24 months .

If she can successfully return to the Salish Sea, Toki will have the opportunity to see her relatives. Her L family has been in good shape in recent years, and a new female cub was added in early 2021. In addition, Toki's mother, the leader of the L tribe, L25 "Ocean Sun", is still alive and appeared in the Haro Strait near Vancouver Island in July last year. Everyone is looking forward to the opportunity for this old mother, born in 1928, to reunite with her daughter after more than half a century of separation in two years.

Last July, people also photographed Toki's mother L25 and her family members L22 and L85 near the Haro Strait near Vancouver Island.｜Center for Whale Research

However, all these expectations were dashed due to Toki's sudden death.

According to the original relocation plan, Toki needed to be trained first, enter a large container filled with water, and then take a plane from the aquarium to the sea and be placed in a larger whale sanctuary. However, Toki did not wait for this day. When she died, she was still living in a small pool in the Miami Seaquarium and could not see the sea in the last moments of her life .

The name Tokitae comes from the language of the indigenous people, meaning " good weather, good scenery ", but for Toki, there has been no good scenery in her life since she was kidnapped by killer whale traffickers. Toki was almost able to return to the sea and regain her freedom. Her ending could have been different - if Toki had been rescued and protected earlier, if there had been no whaling and captivity from the beginning...

Unfortunately, for Toki, there are no ifs.

Author: 23 CCA

Editor: Mai Mai

This article comes from GuokrNature (ID: GuokrNature)

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