Miami-Dade County is looking to terminate its lease with the Miami Seaquarium, citing several violations including inadequate animal care.
The county referred to a 28 November report in which the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) cited the Miami Seaquarium for various violations last year.
The USDA inspection was carried out not long before captive orca Lolita died at the park. Later, another dolphin at the Seaquarium, named Sundance, died due to an illness.
In a letter dated 21 January (via CBS News), Miami-Dade County’s mayor Daniella Levine Cava wrote to Eduardo Albor, president of the Dolphin Company, which operates the park.
Levine Cava expressed the county’s “deep-seated concerns regarding the quality of care provided to the animals at the Seaquarium”.
She said the county is in “frequent communication” with the USDA, which has “documented and brought to our attention multiple and repeated instances of animal welfare violations”.
“Despite these infractions, the lessee has failed to promptly rectify these matters, culminating in the issuance of a notice of intent to confiscate four animals by the USDA,” she added.
The confiscation, Levine Cava said, is “the first time in 30 years that the USDA has taken such a measure with marine mammals“.
“This underscores the gravity of the situation and cannot be taken lightly, and the county will take all possible measures in coordination with the USDA to ensure the welfare of the animals at the Seaquarium,” she wrote.
County cites recent USDA report
Levine Cava’s letter called these violations a breach of the terms and conditions of the aquarium‘s lease and “a failure to uphold the requirement to maintain the animals in accordance with federal laws.”
PETA‘s executive vice president Tracy Reiman responded in a statement: “After a years-long PETA campaign that included lawsuits, celebrity ads, letters to county officials, and lively rallies, including this month at the Miami-Dade County mayor’s office, along with a decade of weekly protests by local activists, the county has finally announced that it is moving to revoke the Miami Seaquarium’s lease, marking the beginning of the end for this animal prison.Â
“PETA has champagne on ice and is preparing to celebrate the day the animals are finally freed from the dilapidated concrete tanks where Lolita and so many others lived and died in misery.”
