Lolita, a beloved celebrity and center of controversy, is finally free | Opinion

This is horrible news, painful for any longtime Miami-Dade resident. Lolita, the orca whale, the star attraction for decades at Miami Seaquarium and a favorite performer for millions of tourists and local kids on school field trips, died Friday.

At the time of her death, she was being prepared to be freed from captivity.

According to the Seaquarium, the 57-year-old whale died of a renal condition. The results of a necropsy may tell more.

Lolita, gentle and beloved, eventually became the center of fierce controversy over her treatment at the tourist attraction. Animal activists decried her tiny pen, held protests demanding her release, took legal action, brought the brunt of international attention onto the Seaquarium — and moved the needle.

Lolita had not performed since 2021, and the Seaquarium’s latest owners announced last year that she would never perform again going forward. Through the kindness of strangers — particularly Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts — the orca was being prepped to be returned to the waters off Washington state, where she was captured in 1970 when she was about 4. It was imagined she would reunite with family members, the L pod of southern resident orcas.

Friday, PETA made its position clear: “Lolita died as she lived: After spending more than five decades imprisoned by the Miami Seaquarium in the smallest, bleakest orca tank in the world, deprived of any semblance of a natural life . . . “ David Perle, local spokesman for PETA, wrote in a news release.

Lolita’s release, it was promised, would send a clear signal to other parks that the days of confining highly intelligent, far-ranging marine mammals to dismal prisons are over.

With human intervention in the animal world comes uncertainty. We will leave it to experts to determine if Lolita was truly up for such a life-changing endeavor. Just last year, Lolita survived a major infection, but over the past few days, clearly was in failing health.

At the time of her death, Irsay’s non-profit, the Seaquarium and others were cobbling together the logistics of transporting a 7,000-pound orca from coast to coast and preparing her to live in the wild, protected by a pen.

Lolita, however, no longer is in captivity.