Yesterday, Sunday 27 August, a ceremony that was initially planned to celebrate the installation of a story pole in honour of the orca known as Tokitae, changed to a celebration of her life after she died on 18 August at Miami Seaquarium. Held on San Juan Island, Lummi Nation representatives gathered with others to remember her, saying she had come home not physically but spiritually. She will be cremated and laid to rest in a private cultural ceremony.
Tokitae (whose native name is Sk’aliCh’elh’tenaut), was so close to having the chance to live the remainder of her life in a sanctuary environment, as near to her natural birthright as possible – making her death, still in confinement, all the more poignant. Her native pod and extended family still swim wild and free in the Pacific Northwest, but the Southern Resident orca population are in danger. The chinook salmon they rely on as a vital food source has been blocked from the area since in the 1960s/70s the federal government authorised the construction of 4 dams in the lower Snake River (Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose, and Lower Granite). This population of orcas are literally starving. We pledge to continue our work to end the keeping of all cetaceans in captivity, and to protect them in their natural habitat. The Snake River dams must go to allow the remaining Southern Resident orcas to survive and thrive.
