Credit: Isabelle Puaut, Flickr
Two months after a Florida theme park was supposed to close, new reports have emerged suggesting that the government previously tried to intervene.
The tale of the Miami Seaquarium is long, tragic, and complicated. First opened in 1955 (coincidentally, the same year as Disneyland), the marine theme park has long been criticized for its animal care.
For years, its resident killer whale, Lolita (AKA Tokitae), was the subject of most activists’ concern. The orca spent decades living alone in her tank (known as the “Whale Bowl”) after her former tank-mate Hugo died, and while Miami Seaquarium promised to free her into the Salish Sea in early 2023, she ultimately died at the park last August.
But Lolita wasn’t the only marine mammal living at Miami Seaquarium. Over the years, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspections have called out the park for bacteria-ridden water, a dolphin found with a two-inch nail in its throat, and a sea lion in so much pain due to a long-delayed surgery that it refused to eat.
As accusations against the park piled up, Miami-Dade County eventually intervened. In early 2023, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava filed an eviction notice against Miami Seaquarium, giving the park until April 21, 2024, to vacate its property in Biscayne Bay due to its “long and troubling history of violations.”
Nearly two months later, however, the park remains in operation. Its owner, the Dolphin Company, has filed its own lawsuit arguing that the county violated the lease by trying to evict the park before its expiry date (2044) and has since insisted that it has now corrected its ongoing issues.
As this case wages on, however, yet more information has come to light about the living conditions of its animals. Documents obtained by Local 10 News included a May affidavit from Dr. Gwen Myers, Chief Animal Health Officer at Zoo Miami, who testified to “animals in distress” at the park.
Having visited the park on four separate occasions, Myers observed “animals in distress,” a “lack of adequate veterinary staffing,” “poor water quality,” “sick and/or injured animals,” “evidence of animal access to unsafe structures and potential foreign body ingestion,” and “poor sanitation and mold in enclosures.”
Other documents secured by Local News 10 also include a USDA confiscation notice sent to MS Leisure Company (a subsidiary of The Dolphin Company) on January 19.
As per the notice, the USDA planned to confiscate four of the animals used as attractions at the Miami Seaquarium: a 19-year-old male California sea lion named Bud, a 24-year-old female Atlantic bottlenose dolphin named Bimini, a 21-year-old male Atlantic bottlenose dolphin named Aries, and a blue and gold macaw named Monty.
The USDA told Miami Seaquarium management that the animals “have been found to be suffering as the result of your failure to comply” with veterinary care regulations. The USDA intended to confiscate the animals on January 20, but a typo in the documents instead mistakenly listed a voluntary surrender date of August 20, 2024.
Local 10 News spoke to Daniel Wehking, a former Seaquarium animal caretaker who is now a lawyer and critic of the marine park. He claims that the USDA “has not responded to questions as to why they changed their plans to confiscate the animals” and provided an update on each of the animals listed.
“Bud was euthanized by the park in March,” he says. “Monty was moved to Peaceable Primate Sanctuary in Indiana in April. Bimini had her ribs broken repeatedly by other dolphins she was housed with. Ares is known for frequent vomiting and was severely underweight. None of these animals were getting the necessary care at the Seaquarium.”
A USDA spokesperson told Local 10 News that it ultimately did not confiscate any of the animals because the Seaquarium corrected the issues covered by the confiscation notice.
Miami Seaquarium has repeatedly argued that its hundreds of animal residents – including dolphins, penguins, sea lions, and sharks – would suffer should Miami-Dade County be successful in evicting the park and that the county has no idea how much work they require.
“I don’t believe they understand the scope of the number of animals in [Miami Seaquarium’s] custody,” Hilton Napoleon II, a lawyer representing the park, told U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Becerra, according to the Miami Herald. “The amount of food they eat. Why the dolphins need to eat ice.”
Conversely, the county has previously claimed that it was making plans to take the park’s animals into its custody. “The county is currently putting together a contingency plan in case we do have to care for the animals,” Melanie Spencer, an assistant county attorney, told a federal judge on May 1.
While Miami-Dade County declined to clarify the specifics of this plan, it did state that it has been “in contact with other facilities,” and its chief operations officer, Jimmy Morales, provided a reminderafter the hearing that Miami-Dade County already operates Zoo Miami.
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