Discover Top Posts Tagged with #tokitae

I am beyond words. I am absolutely fucking FLOORED by this quilt my amazing sister @a-myriad-of-stars made as a wedding gift for my wife and I. Look at those orcas! So distinctly Tilikum (left) and Tokitae (right)💜 Lime Kiln lighthouse and Kama Kulshan (Mt Baker) in the background, perfectly recognizable. Can you BELIEVE this was her first time making a quilt?!?!!

I can’t thank you enough sis. This is the best gift EVER! Love youuuuu

#orca #Tilikum #Tokitae #quilting #not my art #so cool!!!!#it’s so amazing I’m gonna cryyyyy #love you sis 💜💜💜#she made my wife and I into both seals and salmon!!!!

The park has been no stranger to controversy since it opened in 1955.

Finally, justice for Tokitae and the other animals these monsters have tormented for decades.

#animal abuse #tokitae

Miami-Dade has revoked the Miami Seaquarium’s lease, citing multiple violations of contract. They are required to vacate by the end of April. FINALLY, that place can crumble and rot to nothing but a bad memory.

Tokitae should not have had to die for this to happen, but there will be some small piece of justice yet. In the memory of Tokitae, Hugo, Sundance, and all the others that this horrible place hurt. I’m truly grateful that Ocean Sun has been able to outlive the awful place that took her daughter from her.

#msq #Tokitae #miami seaquarium #srkw #southern resident killer whales #southern resident orcas

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/interactive/2023/tokitae-lolita-orca/

#orca whale #tokitae

An article on the release of Tokitae’s ashes:

An orca’s death created a wave of grief for those who called her family and fought for her release from captivity.

Its hard to think that it’s already been a season since she passed, and a little over a year since Ken Balchomb went as well. But ultimately, it has been a good and powerful year for the Southern Residents. I pray that 2024 sees healthy and happy orcas in J, K, and L pods. I pray that all the young ones make it through another year and so does great old Ocean Sun 💜 I hope Toki’s spirit helps take care of them now that she’s back in the Salish sea

#southern resident killer whales #srkw #orcas #killer whales #Tokitae

The call of Tokitae. (Washington Post)

This story is behind the Washington Post paywall, so many (most?) of you who stumble upon this post won't be able to read it. But the story is interesting, and tells us that we have learned a lot about capturing and displaying animals since Tokitae, the killer whale pictured above, was captured and held in captivity at the Miami Seaquarium for four decades, until she recently died. We have also learned a lot about the orca, its socialization, language, behavior and status in our unstable world. Maybe you can find a free read site if you search for her name and learn the same stuff that this Washington Post story told me. Here, an excerpt:

In her prime, she was magnificent: over 7,500 pounds and 22 feet long, liquid lines of obsidian black and white, a sleek, strong body built to swim vast distances and dive hundreds of feet deeper than the 20-foot floor of the barren concrete tank where she performed every day in the center of a crowded stadium.

Her name, Tokitae — Toki for short — was given to her by the first veterinarian to care for her at the Miami Seaquarium; it was a nod to her region of origin, a Coast Salish greeting roughly translated as “nice day, pretty colors.” But to audiences packed into the Seaquarium, she was known only as Lolita.

In the beginning, Tokitae performed 20-minute shows multiple times per day alongside her companion, Hugo, a fellow captured southern resident orca. The whale bowl was small even for a single whale, but the pair shared the space until 1980, when Hugo was found motionless at the bottom of the pool. The young bull — 15 years old, far short of the 50 or 60 years he might have lived in the wild — was dead of a brain aneurysm after repeatedly ramming his head against the side of the tank. His body was reportedly disposed of at a Dade County landfill. Tokitae would continue to share her tank with other cetaceans, but she would never again be in the company of her own kind.

The grim details of Tokitae’s years at the Seaquarium are chronicled in Sandra Pollard’s book “A Puget Sound Orca in Captivity”: Tokitae’s body was marred by sores and abrasions from the concrete pool, and “rake” marks from the Pacific white-sided dolphins who scraped their teeth over her skin. Her favorite toy was an old wet suit — some theorized it might have reminded her of kelp. She was sunburned, with no shelter to shade her, and her eyes suffered from constant exposure to dust and UV radiation. Tokitae regularly performed with injuries — bloody teeth, abscesses, infections — and was kept on a cocktail of antibiotics and medications.

“Her [tail] flukes dragged on the floor of that tank,” Pollard said. “She was never able to fully submerge in a vertical position.”

As our knowledge of orcas grew, and our cultural perception of captivity began to shift, the calls to release Tokitae reached a new intensity. In 1995, Ken Balcomb, the pioneering marine mammal researcher who founded the Center for Whale Research and spent his life tracking the southern resident killer whale population, announced a campaign to push for Tokitae’s return to Washington state. Balcomb’s brother, Howard Garrett, formed a nonprofit organization to support this effort, eventually called Orca Network.

In 2018, the plight of the southern residents drew worldwide attention when an orca known as Tahlequah gave birth to a female calf who died less than an hour later. The grieving mother carried the body of her newborn for 17 days, sometimes in her mouth, sometimes draped over her head or back. Her vigil made global headlines, and many expressed astonishment to see an animal perform such an undeniable ritual of mourning.

Two years later, Tahlequah stunned onlookers again after giving birth to a healthy male calf. Giles was on the water with Tahlequah’s pod near San Juan Island on the afternoon when the new calf was first spotted, and suddenly the two other southern resident pods came charging in from the west, scores of whales soaring up and out of the water as they swam at top speed. Every member of the population was in attendance.

#orca #killer whales #Tokitae #Miami Seaquarium