Romeo and Juliet, a pair of manatees housed at Florida’s Miami Seaquarium – the former home of the orca known as Lolita (Tokitae) – have been moved to substantially larger and cleaner facilities at ZooTampa.
Romeo and Juliet had been living at the Seaquarium since the late 1950s. A third manatee, an adult female named Clarity, who had been living at Miami Seaquarium since 2009, was moved to SeaWorld in Orlando.
Lolita’s plight caught the world’s attention when it was announced earlier this year that she would be returned to an enclosure in her natural home in the Pacific northwestern waters of Puget Sound, Washington. The tiny size of her tank and the filthy waters in which she spent much of her 53-year-long captivity were roundly condemned, but she didn’t live to see her new home; dying in her tank just a few weeks later from a renal condition.
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Lolita’s three other tankmates – a male Pacific white-sided dolphin named Li’i, and Elelo and Loki, a mother-and-son pair of the same species, were rescued in September and moved to San Antonio SeaWorld and Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium, respectively.
The elderly manatees went largely unnoticed while the world’s media focused on Lolita’s confinement until Phil Demers – founder of the UrgentSeas campaign group which brought Lolita’s awful living conditions to the attention of the media – shared another viral video on Tiktok of the male manatee, Romeo, swimming alone in his small and dirty tank.
ZooTampa is one of three centres in the United States that has a dedicated facility for the rescue, rehabilitation, and release of critically injured, sick, and orphaned manatees.
Romeo and Juliet are kept in separate environments as the breeding of manatees in captivity is forbidden by Florida law, however, the pair are reportedly sharing space with other animals to socialise while they are in ZooTampa’s care.
What happens next will depend on the manatees’ overall health, as both are some years beyond the average life expectancy of manatees in the wild, but it is hoped they will be able to be transferred to an open sanctuary if suitable.
‘It’s going to be a long road, but there is no facility better prepared to address the urgent health needs of these manatees while the Manatee Rescue and Rehabilitation Partnership identifies the best option for their long-term placements,’ said Dr Cynthia Stringfield, manatee critical care veterinarian and Senior Vice President of animal health, conservation and education at ZooTampa.
‘Both animals are over 65 years old,’ Stringfield added. ‘At this age, we always have concerns about cardiac health, which is difficult to evaluate in any manatees due to their size. As two of the oldest living manatees, Romeo and Juliet deserve the best care possible as they live out their final years.’
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