Miami-Dade County makes move to evict Miami Seaquarium
Gives park until April to vacate
Miami-Dade County on Thursday gave the Miami Seaquarium weeks to vacate its government-owned campus after a string of federal inspection reports alleged poor care of animals there.
The notice terminating the Seaquarium’s county lease moves Miami-Dade dramatically closer to ejecting the Seaquarium from its home of nearly 70 years in a rapid escalation of the confrontation between Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and the company that took over the for-profit operation in 2022.
In a letter from the mayor’s office, MiamiDade ordered the Seaquarium to surrender its waterfront property by April 21.
“Lessee’s long and troubling history of violations constitute repeated, continuing longstanding violations of Lessee’s contractual obligations to keep the property in a good state of repair, maintain animals in accordance with applicable law, and comply with all laws,” read the letter from Jimmy Morales, chief operating officer under Levine Cava.
The letter starts a process that could lead to eviction if the Seaquarium doesn’t agree to vacate.
Morales gave Eduardo Albor, president of the Seaquarium’s parent company, a Monday deadline to sign an agreement to surrender the county property by the April 21 termination date.
If the Seaquarium does not agree to give up the 38-acre site, Morales wrote, Miami-Dade “shall avail itself of any and all legal means to enforce its rights and remedies.”
If an eviction process follows, the Seaquarium could fight the effort in court and ask a judge to declare the park in compliance with lease provisions the county is citing as the basis for terminating the deal.
Park representatives had no immediate response to the county’s actions, but in the past have called Levine Cava’s criticisms of animal care misguided and blamed the conflict on politics as the mayor seeks reelection in August.
In late December, the mayor’s administration notified the Seaquarium that it planned to terminate the lease based on
unpaid rent and other alleged violations of the lease terms.
Levine Cava followed up with a letter in late January slamming the Seaquarium for what the U.S. Department of Agriculture said was unacceptable care for captive dolphins and other animals in the for-profit park.
“We believe it is imperative to address these serious violations decisively and with urgency,” Levine Cava wrote in the Jan. 24 letter to Albor, president of the Dolphin Company, the Mexico-based parent of the Seaquarium.
Weeks later, the Seaquarium posted a statement on social media accusing Levine Cava of “misinforming people” about animal care at the Seaquarium and lamented that the issue was being “used for political purposes.”
In other statements, the Seaquarium said it was addressing violations or issues cited in USDA inspection reports. The park can challenge the eviction in court. For now, the Seaquarium remains open as a tenant of Miami-Dade.
Opened in 1955, the Seaquarium was once a showpiece of Miami’s tourism industry as one of the nation’s first theme parks centered on marine mammals.
Its captive dolphin drew global attention after the Flipper television series was filmed there in the 1960s.
In the decades that followed, the Seaquarium became a target for animal-rights activists protesting conditions at the county-owned facility.
Much of the attention went to Lolita, the Seaquarium’s lone captive orca living in a tank built for spectator shows.
As part of the Dolphin Company winning county approval for its lease transfer from the park’s prior owners, the company agreed to a goal of moving Lolita to a sea pen in the waters off Washington state, where she was captured in 1970.
That effort was in its early planning stages in August when Lolita died at an estimated age of 57.
In Thursday’s letter, Morales laid out multiple areas of alleged failures by the Seaquarium that are grounds for lease termination, including:
Animal care
Miami-Dade cited violations of federal animal-care regulations reported by the USDA going back to 2022 and as recently as January. The letter also cited a USDA report that says a dolphin bit a visitor, as well as findings that the Seaquarium didn’t have enough staff on hand to manage its population of dolphins, manatees, birds, fish, sea lions, penguins and other creatures.
Maintenance
While Lolita was alive, the stadium that included her tank was shut down to the public because of building-code violations. That was one of multiple outstanding building-code violations cited in the letter, including failure to maintain the manatee tank and the “Flipper Stadium” where dolphins perform.
Certifications
The Seaquarium’s revised lease includes requirements that it remain in good standing with veterinary and animal-park groups. The letter stated it had no records of certifications from the Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums or the American Humane Association.