Free Lolita the orca, Bob Barker urges
Barker, former host of “The Price Is Right,” has a New Year’s resolution for the Miami Seaquarium: Release Lolita!
“I’m calling on the Miami Seaquarium to release the orca Lolita to a seaside sanctuary, where she would be able to feel the ocean currents and communicate with her family,’’ the 94-year-old said in a video posted on PETA’s Twitter account.
PETA stands for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
“Lolita was torn away from her family decades ago and has lived in captivity for more than 47 lonely years,’’ he added.
Lolita arrived at the seaquarium in 1970, according to the Miami marine park, where she’s been Bob Barker, former game show host, in a Tweet posted on PETA’s Twitter account
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The marine mammal is known to soar into the air during shows and playfully splash spectators.
Seaquarium officials didn’t immediately respond for comment on Barker’s social media message.
Over the years, there have been pleas for Lolita’s release by animal advocates who have protested outside the park with signs.
In 2016, park officials anBob
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attractions. nounced that Lolita would remain at the seaquarium after SeaWorld Entertainmnent said it would phase out its orca breeding program and its killer whale shows. It made the decision after a trainer was pulled underwater by a whale and killed.
Barker, a longtime animal rights advocate, said Lolita’s “barren, concrete and chemically treated enclosure is the smallest tank in the entire world. Now enough is enough.”
The former game show host went on to plead to the marine park to retire Lolita “to a seaside sanctuary in 2018. Do not let her spend one more year in captivity.”
Lolita is one of the oldest animals at South Florida’s entertainment parks. The oldest bottlenose dolphin at the seaquarium is JJ. Born in 1976, JJ is the park’s patriarch, with 12 offspring. mental-health treatment.
Maghen flashed what looked like a hand gun when he stole about $10,000 around lunchtime on May 2 from a Chase Bank branch in the 700 block of North University Drive in Pembroke Pines.
He wore ear buds and handed a note to the teller that said he was listening to a police scanner and “Do not try anything or I will shoot you in the stomach.’”
When the teller asked how much he wanted, he “raised all 10 fingers in the air” and took off with
$10,000.
He spent “$2,755 in a matter of approximately 55 minutes” in the casino at the Seminole Hard Rock complex near Hollywood that night and deposited $2,500 in his bank account the next day, according to the FBI.
A week later, on May 9, he wore the mask when he robbed $1,822 from a TD Bank branch in the 1300 block of West Palmetto Park Road in Boca Raton. He handed a note to the teller
that claimed his “grandson” was sick and he needed $40,000.
He was caught after agents traced his landlady’s car, which he used without her knowledge, from video footage recorded near where a GPS tracking device from the stolen money was dumped..
His internet history revealed he had been searching for bank robbery “success and failure stories” and police scanner information.
Maghen worked for financial companies in Miami and Brooklyn, N.Y., but said he was fired from the last one after rejecting his boss’s “constructive criticism.”