Miami Seaquarium Falls Into Disrepair as Crowds Go Elsewhere

It is January, and three dolphins zip throughout the lagoon that serves as their underwater pen at Miami Seaquarium. Over the loudspeaker, an announcer introduces the pod, Zo, Ares, and Flipper, the final of whom is known as after the dolphin from the eponymous tv sequence filmed on the park that aired on NBC from 1964 to 1967.

Through the transient, late-afternoon present, the trio takes turns bopping seashore balls into the pastel-pink, inexperienced, and blue bleachers that encompass the lagoon. They leap over a yellow rope suspended a number of ft above the water for his or her grand finale. However solely a sparse crowd is available to cheer on the acrobatic sea mammals. Fewer than 4 dozen spectators, a mixture of vacationers and a few locals having fun with the lengthy Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, are scattered all through the bleachers.

Lately the dolphin present is among the many few remaining acts protecting Miami Seaquarium afloat. “It is actually a disgrace how run down the place appears to be like,” Raul Arrarte, a customer from Las Vegas who lived in Miami in the course of the Eighties and ’90s, tells New Instances. “It is practically destroyed.”

Wearing a baseball cap, polo shirt, khaki shorts, and boat sneakers, Arrarte is on trip along with his grownup son and second spouse. He recollects bringing his son and two different youngsters to the longstanding attraction once they have been youngsters.

“This was an ideal place. You can spend a whole day watching the dolphins, the ocean lions, and the orca whale carry out.”

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“This was an ideal place,” Arrarte provides. “You can spend a whole day watching the dolphins, the ocean lions, and the orca whale carry out. She would leap out of the water after which — growth! — everybody within the backside rows obtained drenched.”

The subsequent time he involves Miami, Arrarte says, he wouldn’t be shocked if condominiums have changed the 38-acre attraction. “It isn’t well-attended, it is falling aside, and the animals seem like they’re sick,” he factors out. “I discovered that the orca died proper earlier than coming right here. I do not see a lot of a future for the Seaquarium.”

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Lolita died on the estimated age of 57 on August 18, 2023.

Photograph by Gustavo Caballero/Getty Photos

After a long time of neglect by numerous homeowners, Miami Seaquarium is on the Magic Metropolis’s listing of endangered landmarks. Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava not too long ago signaled that she needs to evict the attraction from the county-owned web site the park has known as house since 1955.

Officers for the Dolphin Firm, which took over Miami Seaquarium from Palace Leisure in 2022, didn’t reply to New Instances‘ requests for remark for this story.

Troubled From the Begin

When it opened on Virginia Key, the Miami Seaquarium was one of many first marine-life parks in the US. (SeaWorld, the marine animal park model greatest recognized to Individuals, did not debut till 1964.) In 1960, it was bought by Coral Gables-based Wometco Enterprises, overseen by CEO Mitchell Wolfson Sr. till his loss of life in 1983, after which Arthur H. Hertz took over.

Underneath Wometco’s stewardship, the Seaquarium expanded into the attraction it’s at this time, with the controversial orca present as its centerpiece. Hugo, who was captured in 1968 at Vaughn Bay, close to Puget Sound, Washington, was introduced in because the park’s first orca. In response to the animal-rights nonprofit Dolphin Undertaking, Hugo was positioned in a small pool meant for the manatee exhibit for 2 years whereas a bigger tank was constructed.

Then, in 1970, at Penn Cove in Whidbey Island, Washington, a juvenile whale named Lolita (also referred to as Tokitae) was captured and flown to South Florida to hitch Hugo on the not too long ago accomplished Whale Bowl. The 2 orcas carried out facet by facet for the higher a part of a decade till 1980, when Hugo died of a mind aneurysm. Regardless of hopes that Lolita and Hugo would produce offspring in captivity, that by no means got here to go. There was ample proof that Hugo by no means actually adjusted to life in captivity, together with reviews that he commonly and deliberately bashed his head towards the wall of his tank.

The orca reveals continued with Lolita as the only star. In 2005, when orcas from Puget Sound have been listed on the U.S. endangered species listing, animals held in captivity have been excluded from the legislation’s protections.

Audiences’ urge for food for dwell reveals that includes orcas soured after the discharge of the 2013 documentary Blackfish.

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Then got here the general public backlash ignited by the 2013 documentary Blackfish. Although the movie facilities on Tilikum, the orca at SeaWorld Orlando, audiences’ urge for food for dwell reveals that includes orcas just like the one at Miami Seaquarium soured.

The next yr, Wometco bought the Seaquarium to Palace Leisure, a North American subsidiary of Spanish amusement park large Parques Reunidos. In 2021, Palace reached an settlement to promote the power to Mexico-based park operator the Dolphin Firm.

Within the meantime, the park had grow to be a well-liked goal for animal activists, particularly after Tilikum died in 2017. Individuals for the Moral Therapy of Animals (PETA) and different organizations repeatedly known as on the U.S. Division of Agriculture (USDA) and Miami-Dade County to close down the park and return Lolita to her native waters.

On August 18, 2023, nonetheless in captivity, Lolita died. Within the wild, feminine orcas have a median life expectancy of fifty years however can dwell to be 80 to 90. On the time of her loss of life, Lolita was estimated to be 57 years outdated.

A String of Deaths

The loss of life of Lolita crystallized the seriousness of the Seaquarium’s gradual decline and its obvious have an effect on on the wildlife housed there. Previous to Lolita’s passing, 5 bottlenose dolphins and one toddler California sea lion died on the facility over the 13-month span from March 2019 to April 2020, federal data launched by PETA present.

Since then, the Seaquarium’s troubles have grow to be more and more turbulent. In early December of 2023, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service helped transport three Seaquarium manatees to different animal attraction parks in Florida after aerial footage of the deteriorating tanks wherein they have been saved went viral.

One other marine mammal below the park’s care had died earlier within the yr. Sundance, one of many oldest dolphins to dwell in captivity on the park, died two days after she stopped consuming and had been pressured to carry out reveals, WPLG-TV reported.

Earlier than Sundance died, a USDA inspection report discovered that she was amongst 4 Miami Seaquarium dolphins “exhibiting indicators of gastric misery and irregular samples” by an attending veterinarian. The report famous that the vet recognized that “a number of dolphins could have ulcers and probably overseas our bodies” that required endoscopic procedures that the Miami Seaquarium had not carried out.

A November 2023 USDA inspection catalogued rusted, worn-down animal enclosures and coliform micro organism festering in sea lions’ and flamingos’ residing areas. One of many manatees that was subsequently faraway from the Seaquarium had a extreme pores and skin situation, in line with the report.

The rising physique rely, together with the unresolved animal-welfare violations, might be the final straw for Levine Cava. In a January 21 letter to Dolphin Co. President Eduardo Albor, the county mayor warned that Miami-Dade is “reviewing all mandatory actions to pursue termination” of Miami Seaquarium’s lease, which doesn’t expire till 2044.

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Lolita and Hugo carry out on the Miami Seaquarium in 1978.

Photograph by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Photos

“The welfare of those animals is paramount,” Levine Cava wrote. “And any compromise of their care is a direct contravention of our shared dedication and well-being.”

Underneath the lease settlement, Dolphin Co. pays the county 8 p.c of the park’s “internet e-book income” with a $1.5 million annual cap. Terminating the lease would require a vote by the Miami-Dade County Fee.

Falling Aside

Throughout New Instances‘ January go to, the park’s derelict circumstances are laborious to miss. For households, the worth of admission is steep. The park expenses $40 for every grownup and $35 for every youngster.

Pink flamingos wade in soiled swimming pools close to the doorway and drink brown water from plastic bins. Underneath a cover, a small water tank for freshwater animal life has a single tiny noticed fish swimming round globs of algae. Deborah Campana, a former nanny who not too long ago moved to city from Denver, shares {that a} park worker instructed her that “they’re ready for it to die earlier than determining what different sea life they will put in there.”

“A seal coach stated they’re giving seals unflavored Jell-O to assist hydrate them as a result of they do not like consuming the water of their swimming pools,” Campana tells New Instances. “She additionally stated the ocean lions usually are not allowed within the interplay pool as a result of they will leap over the fence.”

“I used to be anticipating extra enjoyable and extra individuals having fun with the reveals. As an alternative, it is a actually unhappy place.”

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One other signal of despair: an deserted aboveground water tank beforehand used for an additional dolphin present, its floor suffering from particles, its vents caked in dust.

Plastic barricades block off staircases resulting in the tank’s statement deck with indicators that learn: “Sorry. High deck dolphin present space quickly closed.”

Related barricades cordon off the empty manatee tank and the orca area the place Lolita died.

Campana’s first go to to Miami Seaquarium turned out to be a disappointment. “I used to be anticipating extra enjoyable and extra individuals having fun with the reveals,” she says. “As an alternative, it is a actually unhappy place. The animals do not look pleased both.”