page_title: Lolita (killer whale)
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Lolita (killer whale) / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Digital photo taken by Marc Averette. The Miami Seaquarium orca show
context_page_description: Lolita is a 20-foot-long, 7,000 pounds orca who has lived at the Miami Seaquarium since 1970.
context_section_description: On August 8, 1970 Lolita was caught in Penn Cove, Puget Sound, Washington. She was one of seven young whales sold to marine parks around the world from a roundup of over 80 orcas conducted by Ted Griffin and Don Goldsberry, partners in a capture operation known as Namu, Inc. Tokitae, as she was originally named, was purchased by Seaquarium veterinarian Dr. Jesse White for about $20,000. On arriving to the Seaquarium, Lolita joined another Southern Resident Orca named Hugo who was captured some time before Lolita and had lived in the park two years before her arrival. Tokitae was renamed Lolita "after the heroine in Vladimir Nabokov’s novel".
  She and Hugo lived together for 10 years in what is known as the Whale Bowl, a tank 80-by-35-foot (24 by 11 m) by 20 feet (6 m) deep. Even though the pair mated many times (once to the point of suspending shows) the two never produced any offspring. Hugo died on March 4, 1980. Since then, Lolita has lived in the Whale Bowl together with a pair of Pacific White Sided dolphins.
caption: Lolita, the Killer Whale
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