Lolita's tragic story begins when she was captured in the water of the Puget Sound in Washington State. A pod of killer whales were attacked and rounded up using speedboats and releasing explosives into the water. Once forced into the cove, calves were seperated from their mothers, but the motherly whales refused to leave their babies and cried out human-like screams. Of the whales, one adult and four baby orcas were murdered in the capture. Knowing the bad publicity that would follow, the captors cut open the bellies of the dead whales, filled them with rocks, and sank the animals with anchors. Lolita was four years old when she was captured and sold to Miami Seaquarium, and has lived there ever since. She has lived in a concrete tank, alone, performing tricks for over fourty years.

Keiko was born somewhere of the coast of iceland and was captured around the age of four. He was held in an incelandic aquarium, and sold to Marineland in Canada before being sold again to an aquatic park in Mexico. There he was eventually found and cast in the role as Willy for the esteemed and popular "Free Willy" film. The film, after almost paralleling Keiko's own life, sparked a new type of activism. After much effort and rehabilitation, Keiko was released into the wild and is considered the only successful orca to have been returned to freedom. Learn more about his inspiring story of escaping captivity here.