The Project
For my advocacy work for Lolita, I came up with an idea to make a video to give to the Lummi Nation supporting their fight to bring Lolita/Tokitae home to the Salish Sea. The campaign began with a Facebook event asking people to take a selfie while holding a sign I had made saying Until Lolita is Home.
From a mountain top in New Zealand to Sri Lanka and Japan, it was so moving to see the submissions that came in from all over the world! Entries included Dolphin Project founder Ric O’Barry and Helene O’Barry, Rachel Carbary, founder of Empty The Tanks, Margaux Dodds, director of Marine Connection; and Howard Garrett of Orca Network. I then used my minimal video-making skills to compile all the entries. You can see the final result below.
As part of their presentation at Superpod 6, Marine Connection arranged to screen the video along with award-winning ‘The Whale Bowl’ to highlight efforts by NGOs, filmmakers, and activists on both sides of the Atlantic to retire Lolita from the Miami Seaquarium. I was so pleased that the video reached a wider audience and was also well received by the Lummi Nation. To have it screened in the same vicinity where she was captured and taken away from her home and family makes me feel deeply emotional.
– Jo Phillips, Vice President, Until Lolita is Home
About
For thousands of years, the Lummi Tribe have called the Washington state’s coastal lands and islands of the Salish sea home. The area was also once the home of a 52-year-old-killer whale named Tokitae. She was taken from her family by whale hunters along with six other baby orcas.
Lummi Nation has joined a growing call to finally bring Tokitae home to her ancestral waters, where her presumed mother is still alive along with many of her relatives. May 2018, the House of Tears Carvers of Lummi Nation, led by brothers Jewell and Doug James, travelled on a Totem Pole Journey, across the west coast and southern states to the final destination of Miami, Florida.
The carvers worked on a Tokitae totem pole taken to Miami and used to rally communities to support Tokitae’s return to her ancestral waters. Lummi, in collaboration with scientists and specialists, has been working on a rehabilitation program for Tokitae once she is returned to the Salish Sea. This program includes a sanctuary in a large, private cove on Orcas Island, where she can be reacclimated to the Salish waters and rehabilitated to her homelands.
According to the U.S. Constitution, the supreme law of the land, the treaty from 1855 secures the right to fish in usual custom areas. The Lummi’s treaty rights have held up in court many times and brought them victories against the most formidable foes.
Superpod is an annual gathering on San Juan Island, Washington that is open to the public and attended by an international group of scientists, filmmakers, authors, journalists, former trainers, naturalists, orca advocates and people who want to see killer whales in their natural home. The gathering is a combination of socializing, whale watching, learning, and sharing ideas & actions to help protect orcas in their natural habitat and bring an end to cetacean captivity.
