Lolita (orca)

Lolita, also called Tokitae or Toki for short (c. 1966 – August 18, 2023), was a captive female orca of the southern resident population captured from the wild in September 1970 and displayed at the Miami Seaquarium in Florida. She was retired from performing and taken off public display in 2022, and subsequently died in August 2023. At the time of her death, Lolita was the second-oldest orca in captivity after Corky at SeaWorld San Diego.

In March 2023, the Seaquarium announced that plans were being made for Lolita to be moved to a pen in the Salish Sea for the remainder of her life. On August 18, 2023, Lolita died from renal failure after exhibiting signs of distress over the prior two days.

Lolita was member of L Pod of the southern resident orcas, an endangered orca community that lives in the northeast Pacific Ocean. She was a close relative of L25 "Ocean Sun", who is the oldest member of the pod. After Lolita's death, L25 "is the only living whale from the 1960s and 1970s capture era." Lolita was captured when she was an estimated three to six years old, on August 8, 1970, in the Penn Cove capture in Puget Sound, Washington. Lolita was one of seven young orcas sold to oceanariums and marine mammal parks around the world from a capture of over 80 whales conducted by Ted Griffin and Don Goldsberry, partners in an operation known as Namu, Inc.