What’s next for Lolita: a necropsy at University of Georgia | Miami Herald

Friday evening, hours after her death, Lolita was loaded into a sling and moved by crane into an ice-packed semi-truck.

Its destination: the University of Georgia, which has the facilities necessary to do a necropsy on the famous orca, a mainstay attraction of Miami’s Seaquarium for more than 50 years.

Pritam Singh, Keys developer and founder of the nonprofit Friends of Lolita, confirmed to the Miami Herald that Lolita’s next stop was Georgia.

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“My understanding is this agreement with the University of Georgia was done quite some time ago,” he said.

As for a burial or final goodbye to the whale, Singh said plans are still coming together. Disposal of Lolita’s body is up to the Seaquarium, which said in a statement it’s planning a celebration of Lolita’s life soon.

“We’ll be discussing that over the next couple of days,” Singh said.

At the university, researchers will be able to confirm the cause of death for the 57-year-old killer whale, also known as Tokitae or Toki. On Friday, the Seaquarium posted on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, that it believed Lolita died of renal failure.

Read More: Lolita the killer whale is remembered by her favorite humans. ‘She’s swimming free’

In a statement released Friday, the Seaquarium said it will share details in the following days of a “ceremony to bid farewell to beautiful Lolita.”

“At her advanced age, her passing is not a complete surprise. Yet it is a tremendous and overwhelming loss, one felt particularly by those who have loved and cared for her on a daily basis, as well as those around the world that care so much for her,” the statement read.

While details on when — or if — a formal burial will be held are unknown so far, about two dozen animal advocates held a combination vigil and protest outside the Seaquarium in Virginia Key on Saturday, which was closed for the day.

Susan Hargreaves, the 64-year-old founder of animal rights group Animal Hero Kids, said she is glad Lolita is no longer in pain or in captivity.

“Now, the good news is that she will not be waking up tomorrow not being able to get out of her tank. I always wondered if she knew the ocean was so close, if she could smell it,” she said.

Members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) handed out black shirts that said “Free Lolita” on the front and “Boycott the Miami Seaquarium” on the back and signs that read “RIP Lolita.” Amanda Brody, a senior campaigner for PETA, led the group in a eulogy for the deceased killer whale. Afterward, everyone solemnly placed flowers on a paper tombstone.

“We were just here in March and we were celebrating the plans to move her to a seaside sanctuary,” said Brody, 31. “Unfortunately, it was just too late and she never got the freedom that she so badly deserved.”

The uncertainty behind Lolita’s sudden passing — mere days after the Seaquarium released a statement declaring her healthy — left many advocates confused and suspicious. Brody said PETA pledged to closely follow the necropsy results and said she wouldn’t be surprised if the results showed something “nefarious.”

Singh, whose group plunged tens of millions of dollars into a campaign to move Lolita to semi-freedom in an ocean pen in the waters near Seattle, her home, said he was also looking forward to the results of the necropsy.

“A week ago, the vets were here. You know, she was doing great. And the staff is completely devastated. Because this just came completely out of the blue,” he said. “But we had no idea that this was going to happen and so we’re surprised as anybody else.”

After the mystery of her death is solved, the next question is what happens to Lolita’s body.

Some advocates have said they hope to see her returned to the west coast, where she was snatched as a baby nearly sixty years ago. Howard Garrett, of Orca Network, told the Seattle Times he wanted to see the whale returned for a ceremonial burial at sea.

This is the first dead orca in Miami-Dade since March 4, 1980, when Lolita’s mate, Hugo, died of a brain aneurysm. At the time Seaquarium staff said he’d been acting sluggish for six weeks. Activists said he died after ramming his head into the side of the concrete tank he and Lolita shared for a decade. He was 14 when he died.

According to a 1980 article from the Miami News, Hugo’s 23-foot long, 10,000-pound body was hoisted via crane into a truck, where he was carted away to a “secret place” for a necropsy.

It took about three weeks before veterinarians confirmed that a blood clot “the size of a small orange” is what took down the five-ton marine mammal, according to a 1980 Miami Herald article.

At the time, Seaquarium staff also said his final resting place was a secret, “designed to keep souvenir hunters from walking off with pieces of the corpse.”

But later, it came out that his body was unceremoniously dumped — again, via crane — into the South Dade landfill. Years later, his remains were also adorned with pink plastic ribbons, leftovers from the artist Cristo’s iconic “Surrounded Islands” installation.

This story was originally published August 19, 2023 2:45 PM.