Miami Seaquarium Faces Eviction After Decades of Animal Cruelty

If you are a Floridian, you have probably heard of the Miami Seaquarium. You might have visited on a field trip as a student or toured it with family and friends. To anyone, this Seaquarium is a larger and refined version of smaller aquariums located nationwide. With dolphins who walk on water, killer whales who fly, and stadiums reverberating with standing ovations and impressive performances, this popular attraction is as seemingly pure and fun as any other, suspicion-less and leisurely like a theme park or famous tourist spot. However, like an onion, its layers have been pulled apart slowly, revealing moldy underbellies. 

The Miami Seaquarium has a riptide of witnesses and numerous citations of animal abuse, neglect, and uncleanliness, which is why Miami- Dade County is officially ending their lease.  The way this aquarium has publicly and unashamedly housed animals in unsanitary conditions is embarrassing. Some question whether the way the animals were treated is worse and more saddening than the decades the Seaquarium managed to last open without conflict. 

When the Miami Seaquarium opened in 1955, it was expected to be an innocent, entertaining, and educational spot for families and children to visit. Underneath the public blanket of fun performances and apparently healthy animals is a graveyard of 120 whales and dolphins who could have lived long and fulfilling lives in the wild. Founded by Fred D. Coppock and Captain W.B. Gray, it began as the second marine-life attraction in Florida. It has been a staple and popular tourist attraction for almost 70 years since its unveiling but has gradually deteriorated into a rightfully despised center of abuse.  

Dr. Crystal Heath, the co-founder of “Our Honor,” a veterinary association with the mission of empowering outspoken veterinarians and animal professionals who endure hate for voicing work concerns, observed fish in the reef tank surrounded by murky water and each with notably scarred eyes. The dolphins were swimming lethargically and purposelessly along with peeling paint and black mold present in the penguin housing center. These are not signs of a lively marine center with robust and strong animals. This is a center alive for the people, but dead for the animals. Heath commented, “I’m really surprised that the mayor hasn’t taken these animals into protective custody.” 

People fear that the same catastrophe will occur again and that the animals of the Miami Seaquarium will merely be relocated; not saved. There is a shared hope among activists, veterinarians, and other animal experts that Miami-Dade County will adopt a new way of animal care by creating an animal sanctuary. Some fear that those animals will not be relocated, but euthanized by the Seaquarium, for the purpose of their own convenience. People line the sidewalk of the Seaquarium for protests daily, chanting former Orca tank resident Lolita’s name, who passed away after decades of excruciating treatment in captivity, and demanding justice for the animals. All while, in defiance of eviction, Miami Seaquarium unprofessionally continues operations in a time of microscopic scrutiny.

Despite Miami Seaquarium’s unscrupulous response to this retaliation, its demise is determinedly approaching, and people could not be happier. Although animal cruelty still looms about animal businesses around the nation, the action of ending the lease of one of the largest offenders could start a wildfire of animal rights activism; closing many other facilities that accommodate animal abuse. It should be everyone’s goal to educate people about money-driven attractions like the Miami Seaquarium, that profit off exploitation and, in turn, end attendance to these places altogether.