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The Orca Tokitae

(Airdate: February 2, 2022) In 1970, the Southern Resident Killer Whale known as Tokitae (also named Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut and Lolita) was captured off the coast of Whidbey Island when she was four years old. She was shipped across the country and has lived in a tank at the Miami Seaquarium ever since. Coastal Café host Samantha Larson talks with Jay Julius, former Chairman and Councilman of Lummi Nation who is part of a campaign to bring the orca back to her home waters, and Bonnie Swift, a Seattle-based reporter who recently released the Audible podcast series called Tokitae. Over eight-episodes, Tokitae tells the story of the whale and also a much bigger history of the Coast Salish Indigenous peoples and ecosystem, and what’s at stake for all of us.