Editorial: Give last captured Salish Sea orca shot to return
Now more than 50 years after her violent capture along with fellow pod members from the waters of Whidbey Islands Penn Cove in August of 1970, the last living southern resident killer whale in captivity may have a chance to leave a small concrete pool at a southern Florida aquarium and return to her home waters of the Salish Sea.
Its a long shot and one that concerns not only the individual whales health but that of her long-lost family pod and other orcas and marine mammals already facing threats to their survival because of depleted runs of chinook salmon, water pollution and vessel traffic and marine noise.
The orca, now thought to be about 56, is known by three names. Shortly after her capture, she was given the name Tokitae, a name she shares with a Washington state ferry and is said to mean nice day, pretty colors in a Coast Salish language. But since the first days of her display and performances at Miami Seaquarium, she has been widely known as Lolita, a smirking reference to the Vladimir Nabokov novel of the same name because the young female orca was paired at the time with a much older male orca.
But to the Lummi Nation, the Whatcom County-based tribal nation that is working with others to secure her return, the whales name is SkaliChelh-tenaut (pronounced SKA-li CHUKH-teNOT), SkaliChelh for the Whidbey Island cove where she was captured and tenaut, meaning a female relative.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/editorial-give-last-captured-salish-sea-orca-shot-to-return/
I remember that. I grew up on Whidbey Island. We went down to see these in 1970.
Orcas have a life expectancy comparable to humans.