Dear Board Members,

My name is Joe Kleiman. Since 2011, I have been Senior Correspondent and News Editor for InPark Magazine, a leading trade publication covering attraction design and operations. My areas of expertise include museums, zoos and aquariums. Two of my most recent articles – on the design of SeaWorld Abu Dhabi and the expansion of San Antonio Zoo – were selected for the magazine’s last two covers. I also blog about issues within the attractions industry at ThemedReality.com. I am certified by IAAPA in Attractions Facility Management, and served in that capacity for over twenty years. I interned in aviculture at SeaWorld San Diego while in high school and later volunteered in animal husbandry at the San Francisco Zoo. While studying marine biology in college, from 1990-1993, I volunteered with the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network, where I was responsible for collecting dolphin carcasses washed on shore and participated in over thirty necropsies of bottlenose dolphins. From December 2021 to March 2023, I was a pro bono advisor to The Deep Blue Organization, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to retiring performing whales to coastal habitats. In conjunction with Deep Blue’s founders, I developed a strategic business plan and animal welfare improvement plan. The Deep Blue Organization is the only organization or company to have entered into negotiations for Kiska, Canada’s last captive orca. Negotiations ended upon Kiska’s death in March 2023. I am no longer associated with The Deep Blue Organization. This letter is being presented independent of any employer or organization I have been involved with.

I am writing about my concern with the opinion piece “How one whale’s tragic death could ignite a movement” by National Aquarium President and CEO John Racanelli, published September 19, 2023 in the Baltimore Sun. Of particular interest is the second paragraph, which reads:

Last year, a new owner made the courageous decision to try to set things right with Toki by allowing a consortium of NGOs and donors to launch an unprecedented effort to return her to her native waters. Why go to such expense and effort for an animal arguably in her twilight years? Every member of the “Friends of Toki” team with whom I spoke talked of dignity. In her proposed sea pen near the San Juan Islands, they even allowed themselves to imagine she might encounter her mother, thought to be the surviving matriarch of the endangered Southern Resident L-Pod.

There was nothing courageous about the actions of the Miami Seaquarium’s new owner, Mexican dolphinarium chain Controladora Dolphin (which translates roughly as “controlling dolphins”), better known as The Dolphin Company. Adventageous would be a better term. Controladora’s CEO, Eduardo Albor, had a problem – a whale that was losing him money while costing him money. He discovered that if he partnered with an NGO, someone else would deal with his problem for him.

What do I consider courageous? Joel Manby’s decision to partner in 2016 with the Humane Society of the United States, end the breeding of orcas AND Commerson’s dolphins, and place a ban on licensed SeaWorld properties for whales of any kind to be on exhibition in foreign territories, a ban that was honored this year with the opening of SeaWorld Abu Dhabi, which does not house any belugas or orcas. To make such decisions that go against the ingrained corporate culture is courageous.

Another example of courageous action would be Mr. Racanelli and the National Aquarium. Mr. Racanelli, who at the time had been following one of my blogs, reached out to me in 2014, two years before the sanctuary concept was made public, to share his ideas for the future of the Aquarium’s dolphin population and of the marine mammal facility in Baltimore. The concept of a sanctuary, especially one that meets GFAS standards, is commendable and both Mr. Racanelli and the Aquarium should be considered courageous for taking a stance contradictory to industry tenets.

Since much detailed information is provided throughout the ThemedReality blog, I will just make a short summary here of what led to the Miami Seaquarium’s orca Tokitae being taken off display.

• A June 2021 USDA report showed major issues with the whale tank, including water quality, quality of fish, and structural issues. The county would not allow the lease to change to the new owner until these issues were addressed.
• On June 24, 2021, a condominium collapsed in nearby Surfside, Florida, killing more than eighty people. Following the disaster, Miami-Dade County ordered emergency inspections of older structures. In August, 2021, three of the four stadium structures at the Seaquarium, including the whale stadium, received repair or demolish orders from the County.
• A February 1, 2022 USDA pre-license inspection found the whale tank to have rust, flaking paint, disintegrating concrete, composite board, cracked plexiglass, and water leaks. For the first time ever, the pool was determined to not meet the minimum size requirements for a mature female killer whale. The Seaquarium was given sixty days to fix the issues. It should be noted that had the whale and the Pacific white-sided dolphin that also resided in the tank been removed to a temporary facility, either newly constructed or at another park, modifications and repairs could have been made to the tank. We know it could have been done because precedent exists. When it opened in 1970, the tank originally had three pools. The concrete wall separating B and C pools was removed during that first decade of operation. Had the two animals been placed in an intermediary transitional tank, the condemned tank could have been razed and I would not be writing this letter.
• On February 22, 2022, Controladora informed the USDA that it would not place the animals on public exhibition. A deal was made with Betty Goldentyer, then USDA’s Director of Animal Welfare, for an exhibitor’s license to be provided to the park, exempting the whale stadium, an action that removed Animal Welfare Act protections from the whale and the dolphin. I am assuming, as you are board members of one of the world’s leading public aquariums, that you are aware that all zoos and aquariums have backstage areas where animals are not on public display, but which are regulated by the USDA. The actions committed by the USDA in Miami are unprecedented and, from an animal welfare standpoint, unethical, as the orca was specifically listed as part of an endangered wild population. Goldentyer has been under federal criminal investigation for other questionable actions.

I could go further into details on the partnership between Controladora Dolphin and Friends of Toki. I could present hundreds of FOIA and court documents to back my claims. Instead, I would like to defer to one one of the world’s top experts on Tokitae, Howard Garrett, who has spent decades fighting for the whale’s return to the waters from which she was captured. Garrett, pictured at the top of this page with Friends of Toki co-founder and Whale Sanctuary Project Executive Director Charles Vinick, as the two jointly presented on the plan to return Tokitae to Washington, has acted as a conduit between Friends of Toki and the animal advocacy movement. A Friends of Toki insider, Garrett broke the news that the plan was, once the whale was out, to tear down the entire park and build something in its place. He made this statement more than a month before a Miami-Dade County Commissioner did the same.

On March 30, 2023, Garrett wrote:

Toki is the unifying force who brought us all together to carry her home. Love of Toki united Eduardo Albor with Pritam Singh, woven together by Mayor Cava and Commissioner Regalado, harmonized with spiritual guidance by Raynell Morris and diplomatic graces of Charles Vinick, and now Jim Irsay comes in to offer his good heart and deep pockets to make it all happen.

This is now more than just a team, they’re a force field able to plow through the permitting process, seapen site selection and design, legal processes, budgeting handiwork, public involvement and presentation, all in a spirit of shared affection, respect, and reverence for Toki.

But less than a year later, after the whale had died in her condemned tank, after her ashes had been returned to the ocean, after the dolphin had been scheduled for a move to SeaWorld, Garrett wrote a much different kind of statement, one which outlined the duplicitous nature of both Controladora and Friends of Toki. On September 23, 2023, Garrett wrote in a comment to Canadian activist Phil Demers:

Eduardo Albor was always all in for the industry, and the industry culture is to never give in to the “extremists” who want to take their whales and dolphins. He was in a very peculiar position with a whale he couldn’t display and he couldn’t keep, and Pritam Singh [Chairman of Sea Shepherd and co-founder of Friends of Toki] offered to pay all expenses, so he got with the program to move her home publicly but it was always a public relations strategy.

Mr. Racanelli states “Every member of the ‘Friends of Toki’ team with whom I spoke talked of dignity.” Unless dignified actions are taken, dignity is just a word.

On May 1, in conjunction with Valerie Greene, a lawyer and former SeaWorld senior trainer with orca experience, including Tilikum, the whale featured in the film Blackfish, a proposal was sent to Jim Irsay, the NFL team owner who had committed to pay for Tokitae’s move and care. We were concerned that a temporary intermediate tank had not been considered, one where proper medical treatment could be handled, and she and her caretakers could prepare for the next stage of her life in a clean, safe environment. Such a tank was afforded to Keiko, the star of Free Willy, in a program managed by Vinick. We were told nine days later that Irsay had handed over our proposal to Vinick and Singh, and that was the last we heard of it, until Vinick was interviewed a few months later, stating that the tank was “fine” and that it was “not collapsing around her.” He also stated that pieces of concrete did fall off the slideout into the tank, but that trainers were fixing that with epoxy. Please disregard the fact that Mr. Vinick sent a letter to NOAA on February 8, 2022 stating the need to remove Tokitae from the tank so the park could execute necessary repairs.

Two things took place in December 2022. First, Friends of Toki assured attendees to its “Day of Listening” event that it would publicly disclose the results of its water quality tests. That has yet to happen. Second, the group issued a press release, since removed from its website, that included this graphic outlining the upgrades to the water system. Ms. Greene and I have been working with an informal coalition on the problems facing the Miami Seaquarium, which includes former SeaWorld and Seaquarium trainers, life support and facility specialists from a number of dolphinariums and aquariums, animal welfare advocates, NASA and SpaceX engineers and biomedical specialists, and marine mammal veterinarians. None of us can figure out this diagram (note – there’s an arrow that points to nothing). We’re hoping perhaps your staff could put it in perspective.

We have studied footage of the chillers and ozone generation system taken from overhead and from other vantage points and are concerned that what was provided may have been inadequate for the tank. We are also concerned that if ozone was not killed before the water was added to the main tank, a layer could have remained at the surface, where it easily could have been inhaled by either the orca or the dolphin. Ozone exposure can lead to severe breathing problems, and we already know Tokitae had respiratory issues.

Here is a comparison between the whale stadium on the day Tokitae died and Dolphinaris, a dolphin swim facility that was built in the Arizona desert. When the ozone generator was installed, supposedly the amount of chlorine in the tank was reduced. One of the issues at Dolphinaris Arizona surrounded lowered chlorine levels, which made the water a murky green. The dolphin sicknesses reported at Dolphinaris, which resulted in four of its eight dolphins dying over its three years of operation, corresponded with lower chlorine levels and the greenish, algae filled water. Excessive algae growth also fosters the breeding of mites, something Seaquarium was cited for by USDA at its manatee pools.

Seaquarium: WPLG; Dolphinaris Arizona: Dr. Jenna Wallace. Dr. Wallace was at Dolphinaris when the first death took place. Her photos were taking prior to her departure from the facility, after which three more dolphins passed.

Tokitae was close to death or in severe medical distress at least three times during 2022. We don’t know the figure for 2023 because, though Friends of Toki likes to use the term “transparent,” they tend to not show a knowledge of how the term works.

It is very likely that Friends of Toki would have received permits from Washington state officieals to build a sea pen sanctuary – likely by 2025. But permission to move the whale and place it in the sea pen is a different matter. That would be up to NOAA, USDA and the Marine Mammal Commission. I’m highly skeptical if the move would have been approved, considering her continued health issues and the medications she was on, one of them not approved by the FDA.

So she was stuck in that condemned pool with questionable water quality and forced to do fast swims in a very confined space to strengthen her for a sea pen she likely would never go to because of her poor health. That’s not preparing an animal for a sanctuary. That’s publicizing an animal you’ve placed on hospice as being prepped for a sanctuary. There’s no dignity in that.

There was a dignity plan devised by the park’s prior owners, Palace Entertainment. It was thrown out the door by Controladora in favor of publilicy removing her by crane out of her tank, timed for the 5:00 news, while the truck carrying her to her necropsy in Georgia left the park on schedule for the 11:00 broadcasts.

If this was the National Aquarium, if your dolphin stadium and tank were condemned by the county and the USDA, would you work a back room deal to take it off government oversight? Would you keep your dolphins in a tank where concrete was crumbling, paint was peeling, and the tank was leaking? Would you install a questionable filtration system and hide the water quality reports from the public? Would you force a dolphin to fast swim through a flume that she injured her jaw on just a few years earlier?

Where is the dignity?

Congratulations on the recent renewal of your AZA accreditation. I wonder if you would have received it had you treated your animals the way Friends of Toki and Controladora Dolphin treated Tokitae and the white-sided dolphin Li’i.

When John Racanelli writes an opinion piece as the CEO of the National Aquarium, he is representing the National Aquarium. It’s ok to write about others in the sanctuary movement, but if they are not up to the high standards of your organization, then affording them accolades gives an unexpected perspective on your own organization’s moral values and ethics.

Sincerely,

Joe Kleiman