‘Toki’ prepares to move out of Miami Seaquarium

VIRGINIA KEY, Fla. – Tokitae is as majestic and powerful as ever.

Jessica Comolli, the director of the Miami Seaquarium’s animal health department, said Tokitae is doing great.

“She has great energy; her blood work is stable,” Comolli said. “She’s looking really good right now.”

The 57-year-old orca now known as “Toki” retired from her performances as “Lolita” at the Miami Seaquarium stadium in Virginia Key, and the Seaquarium’s leadership admits it’s time to get her out.

“We need to put her somewhere to repair this,” said Eduardo Albor, the chief executive officer of the Dolphin Company.

Local 10 News was invited to the facility after photographs showed paint peeling, spalling, and shoring underneath the structure. Miami-Dade County inspectors deemed the stadium surrounding Tokitae’s tank as unsafe for the public in August 2021.

Albor said he inherited the whale stadium in its dilapidated conditions when his company took over in March of last year.

“It concerns us definitely and it requires very deep maintenance,” Albor said. “The only way to do it is to empty the tank obviously to remove her and empty the tank we cannot do it while she’s in here.”

Albor said he is now open to the possibility of releasing “Toki” to an enclosed, fully staffed, natural sea pen in the Pacific Northwest, in the same waters where she was captured as a 4-year-old calf in 1970, and where her family the l-pod still swims through today.

First, they need to get her ready, and improving her health and present quality of life is paramount. Albor said more than half a million dollars has been invested to improve her water quality.

Since the spring of 2022, the seaquarium has been working with the nonprofit, Friends of Toki, to provide optimal care and together figure out what her best future would be. Getting her water right was critical.

Over the past few months, new upgrades have been installed to better filter the pool and regulate her water temperature. new chillers can now get the temp down to mimic the waters of the Pacific Northwest. Michael Partica trains “Toki.”

“Right now it’s at 56 to 58 but we can get it down to 50,” Partica said. “We have redundancy in the chiller so if one goes down we have backups and then we have the ozone generator which will sterilize the water from bacteria, algae parasites that type of thing.”

Partica said the pool is scrubbed and vacuumed four times a week and as for the health scares that saw “Toki” gravely ill both in February and October of 2020-21. But defying all odds, “Toki” has bounced back strong.

“Toki is doing great,” Partica said. “We’re increasing our interactive time we’re trying to find ways to entertain her throughout the day.”

The plan is to continue the exercise program and then just start getting ready for the move. She has to be trained to voluntarily swim onto a stretcher and that training has yet to begin.

“We will be starting that very shortly,” Partica said.

Friends of Toki said the move could take months if not a couple of years to finalize, but if for whatever reason they need to get her out sooner, she’s ready.

“If the move will happen like this or next week, she could do it right now,” Albor said.

The sea pen plan is all but a done deal. Both federal and state regulatory agencies still need to approve it and that will take months maybe even years.

Friends of Toki say the application process has already begun but it’s not the only option on the table. We will explore what else is being discussed during a special report that will be airing on Tuesday on Local 10 News.