Fed Up: Miami-Dade Mayor Moves to Axe Seaquarium’s Lease

By Izzy Kapnick

On January 23, 2024

The county mayor says she’s ready to pull the plug on the Seaquarium.

Federal inspectors’ latest surveys of Miami Seaquarium painted a dire picture of the nearly 70-year-old marine park.

When an inspector came through the Seaquarium in the summer of 2023, he found animal tanks crumbling and staff worn thin, with “a single veterinarian to care for the 46 marine mammals and hundreds of birds, fish, sharks, and rays housed at the facility.” Upon arriving in November, another inspector noted rusty, worn-down penguin enclosures and flamingos wading in water laden with bacteria levels strikingly higher than the industry standard.

In years past, Miami-Dade County, which leases out the Virginia Key property on which the Seaquarium operates, granted the park leeway to address safety citations and less-than-flattering inspection reports.

But Mayor Daniella Levine Cava struck a starker tone this week, signaling that the county intends to terminate the Seaquarium’s contract and shut down its operations in the process.

On January 21, Levine Cava sent a letter to Dolphin Co., the park owner, saying the county is “reviewing all necessary actions to pursue termination” of the park’s lease.

“It is with profound frustration that I must convey the county’s deep-seated concerns regarding the quality of care provided to the animals at the Seaquarium,” the Miami-Dade County mayor wrote. “We are in frequent communication with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which has documented and brought to our attention multiple and repeated instances of animal welfare violations.”

If the Seaquarium is closed down, it would mark the end of an era for Miami.

Millions of visitors have passed through the park since its opening, and many South Florida children grew up going to its summer camp. The Seaquarium rescue program cared for and released hundreds of manatees over the decades, playing a key role in rehabilitation efforts until 2021, when, according to animal rights group PETA, federal officials suspended the park’s status as a critical care facility.

In recent years, the park fell under an increasingly intense global spotlight over the plight of Lolita the orca, the park’s star attraction, who had been confined to a small tank at the Seaquarium since the 1970s. In August 2023, days after the park announced that Lolita (AKA Tokitae) appeared to be on the mend from a severe, chronic infection, her condition deteriorated, and she died following a medical procedure.

As the dispute with the county plays out, Miami Seaquarium says it remains “open and operating.”

The Seaquarium released a statement claiming that in moving to terminate the lease, county officials “misused information they claimed they had received from the USDA regarding animal health issues.”

“The mayor and her staff have never reached out to [the park] to confirm the accuracy of this information before making it public. They could have contacted us at any time with any questions or concerns, or even sent an independent veterinarian to confirm the claims, but this was not the case,” the Seaquarium said.

State of Decay?

Over the past few months, Miami-Dade County has repeatedly warned the park that it was in danger of losing its lease as a result of animal safety issues raised by USDA inspectors.

The county notified the Seaquarium in November that it was in default in light of a July inspection, which reported that veterinary understaffing had forced the park to tend only to sick and severely unhealthy animals, leaving park-wide routine testing to go on pause. The park employed a sole veterinarian in the summer of 2023, who had “zero full-time support staff” after three veterinary technicians resigned, the USDA said.

“It was reported by several employees that a newly appointed corporate trainer, in charge of dolphin training, was instructing other employees not to contact the [the veterinarian] and undermining her authority, which created a very stressful environment,” the USDA stated.

The report noted that a dolphin, Elelo, had to have plastic and cement removed from his stomach after ingesting the material from a deteriorating pool. The animal remained in the tank despite the veterinarian’s efforts to get him removed, according to the USDA.

Miami-Dade County sent another default letter to the Seaquarium in December, pointing to late rental payments and more citations from a winter inspection by the USDA.

In that instance, the inspector identified dilapidated, rusted animal enclosures as well as coliform bacteria festering in sea lions’ and flamingos’ living spaces. The bacteria, associated with fecal contamination, was measured at more than 20 times higher than the industry standard level in some cases, according to the report.

Clarity, a sick manatee, was noted to have a severe skin condition with white patchy lesions around her body.

“Due to a lack of facilities and the inability to drop the pool, coupled with the absence of necessary equipment, the [attending veterinarian] has been unable to examine Clarity thoroughly,” the report stated.

Clarity, along with manatees Romeo and Juliet, were later transferred out of the park to ZooTampa in a move that garnered global headlines.

Dolphin Co., which took over the Seaquarium from Palace Entertainment in 2022, has maintained that it inherited an aging, dilapidated facility and that it has attempted to upgrade and improve conditions since the acquisition. Built in the mid-1950s, Miami Seaquarium is one of the oldest operational marine parks in the nation.

“The park was not taken care of for many years by the previous organization. We came in, started working on filtrations and the water system,” Edwin Gonzalez, Dolphin Co.’s executive director for U.S. parks, told NBC6. “We know there are some areas we need to continue working and improving. We know we’ve done a great job working with our animals and continue to improve day to day.”

Dolphin Co. challenged the USDA’s summer inspection findings, arguing that it did not intentionally cut back its veterinary staff and worked quickly to hire new technicians after the string of resignations. The company noted that Elelo the dolphin was transferred to Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium in August.

Valerie Greene, an animal rights advocate and former SeaWorld trainer, says that the Seaquarium’s deteriorating state and ongoing staffing issues, as outlined in the USDA reports, are too grave to cast aside, no matter how deep the park’s roots in the community.

“Seaquarium, as controversial as it’s always been, was still this staple of Miami. Kids would take field trips there,” Greene tells New Times. “But it’s so ancient, I think it’s past the point of no return. The tanks are crumbling, and animals should not be exposed to such an unsafe environment.”

Dolphin Co. has not responded to a request for comment.

The company owns more than 20 marine attractions around the globe, including two others in Florida: Gulfworld in Panama City Beach and Marineland in St. Augustine.

Last Leg

Miami Seaquarium generally has 45 days, per the lease terms, to remedy animal safety violations and other breaches of the lease.

However, the mayor’s letter indicated that the park may be at the end of the line in terms of opportunities to bring itself into compliance.

Levine Cava wrote that the USDA at one point issued a confiscation notice to the Seaquarium for four marine mammals. Without identifying the animals, the mayor said she had been “informed that this confiscation is the first time in 30 years that the USDA has taken such a measure with marine mammals.”

After the mayor sent the letter, the USDA clarified that the Seaquarium had taken remedial measures to halt the confiscation process — a point the park highlighted in its response to the mayor this week.

Miami-Dade County has warned the park that in addition to the animal safety citations outlined in recent USDA reports, the park breached the lease through “multiple violations” of county code and building regulations.

“In the event of non-compliance, the county retains the right to exercise all available remedies…and will take all necessary steps to seek termination,” Miami-Dade wrote to Dolphin Co. in December.

Palace Entertainment, the park’s prior owner, managed to navigate controversy after controversy and a persistent stream of animal rights activists’ protests calling for the facility to be shuttered. In 2021, the park weathered a scandal stemming from a federal inspection that found dolphins and Lolita the whale were being underfed over the objection of a lead veterinarian. (She was allegedly fired after workplace tension mounted regarding her cooperation with investigators.)

The county cited the Seaquarium in the summer of 2021 for structural deficiencies in the stadium where Lolita was housed. The park retired the whale from public exhibition the following year, a move that voided the USDA’s jurisdiction over her care and living conditions. 

This piece was republished from the Miami New Times.