Earth Ministry / Washington Interfaith Power & Light

Earth Ministry/WA IPL

For a Just and Sustainable World

#SalishSeaDaughter Twitter Challenge: Bring Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut Home from Miami Seaquarium

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Earth Ministry/WAIPL is honored to support and be part of the campaign organized by Lummi Nation elders Squil-le-he-le (Raynell Morris) and Tah-Mahs (Ellie Kinley) to bring captive Southern Resident orca Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut (also known as Lolita or Tokitae) back home to the Salish Sea from the Miami Seaquarium. You can read more about this Native-led campaign at sacredsea.org

SacredSea.org and Earth Law Center are sponsoring a twitter challenge to help use the positive power of social media to convince the Miami Seaquarium to get onside with our Indigenous-led campaign to bring our orca relative home in a good way. 

Get a celebrity (or anybody with millions of followers) to retweet or share your post, and you just may help convince the Miami Seaquarium to say “yes” to partnering with us.

Here’s how:

  • Send out a tweet sharing Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut’s story and/or inviting Miami Seaquarium to help us bring Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut home to the Salish Sea! 
  • Send out one of our sample tweets below or create your own. 
  • Make sure to conclude the tweet with our hashtag #SalishSeaDaughter so we can track the progress!
  • Your goal is to get a ‘celebrity’ with the most followers to retweet (or reshare if on Facebook or Instagram) your post
  • The competition will end on World Orca Day, July 14th. So get tweeting and we will announce the winners of our cash prizes on August 8th! 

Cash prize for the retweet with most followers: $500 1st place; $250 2nd; $100 3rd 

Twitter Tips:

  • If you upload a photo to your tweet you can tag up to 10 accounts! Tag your favorite celebrities for the contest as well as @MiamiSeaquarium @parquesreunidos 
  • Below are some photos of Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut that you might want to include

Sample Tweets:

I support the return of Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut (aka #Tokitae / #Lolita), an endangered Southern Resident orca, from the #MiamiSeaquarium to the Salish Sea. She has been held captive in a small tank in Miami for over 50 years. #SalishSeaDaughter
I join the call to return Sk’aliCh’ehl-tenaut, from #MiamiSeaquarium to the Salish Sea and her Lummi family. Miami Seaquarium and their parent companies—Palace Entertainment, Parques Reunidos, and EQT—can still do the right thing. #SalishSeaDaughter
We must return the orca Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut (aka #Tokitae or #Lolita) from the @MiamiSeaquarium to the Salish Sea. She is a sacred relative of the Lummi people and has been held in a small tank for 50 years. * Petition: https://bit.ly/2TmrQbV #SalishSeaDaughter
I invite the @MiamiSeaquarium and parent companies to partner with the Lummi matriarchs & bring Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut home. #upholdindigenousrights #SalishSeaDaughter

You can also retweet Earth Ministry/WAIPL’s tweet here:

Background:

  • Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut (also known in captivity as Tokitae or Lolita) was taken from her Southern Resident Orca family in the Salish Sea when she was just a few years old. She has been held at Miami Seaquarium for 51 years.
  • The Lummi Nation is a Native American sovereign nation in northwest Washington State. The Lhaq’temish people of Lummi Nation have lived on and by the Salish Sea since time immemorial.
  • The Lhaq’temish term for orca is qwe’lhol’mechen, which means “the relations that live under the water.” Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut is family.
  • Right now there is a campaign spearheaded by two Lhaq’temish matriarchs to bring  Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut home to the Salish Sea. This campaign is supported by international Indigenous leaders, faith and environmental organizations, elected officials, and citizens.
  • These matriarchs commissioned the world’s leading experts to draft a comprehensive plan to bring her home in a safe, responsible way.  Her Xwlemi Tokw (Lummi Home) in the Salish Sea will be in a safe and protected area, allowing her to receive any care that she might need on an ongoing basis.
  • Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut was captured in 1970, when Western science knew little about orcas. Western science now knows that captivity is bad for orcas, and that captive orcas can be rehabilitated to live in natural environments. 
  • When you know better, do better: we want the Miami Seaquarium to work with us to bring Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut home to the Salish Sea in a good way.
  • Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut still sings the song her mother taught her when she was young. She knows who she is and where she belongs. Her mother is still alive and swimming in the Salish Sea. Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut is her only surviving child.
  • Bringing Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut home is a way we can right a wrong.
  • Bringing Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut home will help heal her, her mother, her family, the Lhaq’temish people, and the Salish Sea.
  • Bringing Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut home is a way to recognize and uphold Indigenous rights.
  • It’s her right and time to come home. She’s earned it.
Earth Ministry/WAIPL works within the unceded territories of Northwest Native nations. Our office is on the traditional land of the first people of Seattle, the Duwamish People past and present. Land acknowledgement is one way to resist erasure of Indigenous histories as well as to honor tribes and the land itself.