Washington state
Tribes, environmental groups call for this captive orca’s return
Tribal nations and environmental groups will once again call for the return of one of the last captive orcas in the nation in a livestream event Sunday, Aug. 8, at 4 p.m. The event will mark the 51st anniversary of the orca’s capture from Whidbey Island’s Penn Cove.
The livestream will include ceremony, songs and updates from Lummi Nation Chairman Lawrence Solomon, the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians President Leonard Forsman, Tsleil-Waututh Nation Councillor Charlene Aleck, Whale Sanctuary Project, Earth Law Center and others.
In a 2019 press release announcing Lummi Nation tribal members Raynell Morris and Ellie Kinley’s intent to sue for the orca’s release, the pair wrote Lummi Nation was never notified nor consented to the orca’s capture from territorial waters. The killer whale — noted as the lone survivor of a round-up of over 50 Puget Sound orcas in 1970 — has since been performing at the Miami Seaquarium in Miami, Florida.
At the aquarium, the orca is known as Lolita, but activists have always called her Tokitae. Last year, the Lummi Nation renamed her “Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut,” meaning a member of the resident orcas in the Salish Sea.
“In our language, ‘qwe lhol mechen’ translates to ‘our relative under the water.’ She is a member of our family, and it is our sacred obligation to bring her home to the Salish Sea,” Jay Julius, then chairman of the Lummi Nation, told the Seattle Times in 2018.
Lummi Nation members joined other tribes in totem pole journeys to the aquarium to call for the return of Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut in 2018 and 2019.
“It is time for her to come home, and we have a plan in place for how to do this in a culturally appropriate, spiritually guided, scientifically sound, safe and responsible way,” Morris and Kinley wrote in a recent email about the livestream. “We are gathering from around the world to show that we are Netse Mot — of one heart and one mind — for our relation Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut.”
Morris and Kinley renewed their legal efforts to repatriate Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut with representation from the Earth Law Center last year. A petition from Earth Law Center calling upon the Miami Seaquarium and parent companies Parques Réunidos and Palace Entertainment to return the orca home has gained over 16,000 signatures.
The livestream can be watched from the Sacred Sea Facebook page, on the SacredSea.org and Sacred Sea’s YouTube channel.
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Natasha Brennan covers Washington state tribes’ impact on our local communities, environment and politics, as well as traditions, culture and equity issues, for McClatchy media companies in Bellingham, Olympia, Tacoma and Tri-Cities.
She joins us in partnership with Report for America, which pays a portion of reporters’ salaries. You can help support this reporting at bellinghamherald.com/donate. Donations are tax-deductible through Journalism Funding Partners.
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