ZooTampa
MIAMI — Juliet the manatee, a person of 3 sea cows that have been rescued from the Miami Seaquarium late past calendar year due to inadequate dwelling circumstances, has died early Sunday morning, CBS Information Miami has acquired.
ZooTampa, the facility where by Juliet was transferred to back again in December 2023, shared on X that the manatee experienced died just after she went beneath a program clinical assessment very last week, where by “she exhibited health and fitness concerns possible relevant to her advanced age.”
“Juliet was a beloved animal, who captured the hearts of lots of throughout the world. We would be contacted commonly by animal treatment industry experts, veterinarians and even the normal general public who credit history her for instilling their passion for these mild sea cows,” said Dr. Cythnia Stringfield, ZooTampa’s senior vice president of animal wellness, conservation and education and learning. “Our feelings are with the full manatee neighborhood and the groups who for more than 6 a long time have cared for her.”
ZooTampa additional that a necropsy will be executed to confirm the manatee’s precise cause of loss of life.
Juliet was one particular of 3 manatees that were being relocated to ZooTampa and a different facility in Orlando soon after one particular of a number of inspection studies from the U.S. Office of Agriculture cited the Seaquarium for inadequate animal treatment and neglect, a person of which associated how Juliet and the other two sea cows lacked satisfactory veterinary care and lived in weak living environments.
“For extra than four months, Juliet experienced successfully tailored to her new atmosphere in the Zoo’s rehabilitation pools and was socializing with other manatees,” Stringfield extra.
Nonetheless, Stringfield famous that there have been “a lot of features” of Juliet’s overall wellbeing that ended up unknown and that she was an “unusually substantial” sea cow, weighing 3,045 lbs., and was believed to be around 65 yrs previous, building her one particular of the oldest recognised manatees.
In accordance to ZooTampa, Juliet and her Seaquarium tankmate Romeo had been “little by little acclimating” to their new homes at the facility back again in December regardless of the areas of their over-all well being remaining relatively unidentified at the time.
Even though she did not die at the Seaquarium, Juliet is the fourth animal in just about a 12 months that had died in correlation with the Miami facility’s bad residing situation.
Lolita the orca died from previous age and multiple continual sicknesses on Aug. 18, 2023, following currently being held at the Seaquarium for around 50 years. She was the initially maritime mammal to have died and carry mass awareness to the facility’s controversies, as The Dolphin Enterprise — the Seaquarium’s owner — had announced in March 2023 to relocate her to a all-natural sea pen in the Pacific Northwest but failed to do so in time.
Then in December 2023, Seaquarium officers introduced the death of Sundance the dolphin, who had lived at the facility for over 30 a long time and died just after “precursors of disease.” Then in March of this year, Bud the sea lion was euthanized by the Seaquarium allegedly just one working day just after Miami-Dade County officials noticed the animal’s “lethargic problem” during their onsite inspection.
The Miami Seaquarium has been at the ire of both equally county and federal governments, along with neighborhood and national animal rights activists above the past many several years, but stress with the facility has developed even far more more than the past numerous months. In separate USDA inspection reports, the agency has cited the South Florida aquarium with a number of violations, which includes insufficient veterinary treatment and facility ailments, along with bad animal managing, sheltering and sanitation.
In just one of the most shocking inspections, the USDA found another sea lion refusing to try to eat simply because of untreated cataracts and a dolphin with a two-inch nail in its throat.
MS Leisure Organization, Inc., together with the Dolphin Firm — who manages the Seaquarium — issued the eviction discover after Miami-Dade County officials cited numerous and substantial violations of its leasing arrangement relating to the animal and facility neglect allegations it faced.
Despite calls for long lasting closure, the Seaquarium has remained afloat and proceeds operations, despite anticipated to leave its premises on Sunday, April 21.
