When Danielle Daal looks at the bathtub in her family’s Wellington home she sees not only a place where her son Christian (22 months) likes to splish and splash around but also a prison. A soak inthe tub might be relaxing for 20 minutes or so, but Danielle is preparing to live in one for 30 days to raise awareness for an orca named Lolita who’s been kept in captivity in the US for 45 years.
“I probably won’t want to see a bathtub after this!” Danielle (30) admits. “I thought about practicing before I go [to the US to carry out her protest], but Lolita never had any practice – she was swimming free and now she’s in this tiny tank.”
Lolita was a baby when she and the rest of her pod were herded and separated in the Puget Sound in the US state of Washington in 1970. She was sold to Miami Seaquarium and now – at 6.4m long and more than 3 tonnes – she remains in a tank that’s 10.7m wide and 24.4m long by 6m deep, where she performs tricks for thousands of visitors each year.
Danielle was initially moved by the controversial 2013 documentary Blackfish – but only recently came across the 2003 animal-rights film Lolita: Slave to Entertainment. It affected her so much she felt she had to help. When she saw a group of protesters with signs depicting an orca in the bath, referencing the comparable size of the orca to the pool, and the slogan, “Could you live in your bathtub?”, she had her lightbulb moment. “Initially I thought I couldn’t possibly do it, because I have a child and work and a husband, but it got to the point where I had this overwhelming urge to do something for her. I thought, ‘If I really want to do it, I’ll make it happen.’”
Danielle knew if she told her family about her idea they’d say she was crazy and it would put her off, so she made her plans in secret. Via email, international animal rights group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) put her in touch with a group in Miami called Animal Activist Network, whose members are supporting her effort. She applied for annual leave from her part-time night job for an airline and looked into daycare for Christian. Danielle knew she had to come clean with husband Jonathan when her story appeared in a newspaper. “It was a bit of a gamble,” she laughs. “My husband didn’t say anything for ages, which made me a bit nervous, but then he just said, ‘If it’s what you’re going to do… ‘ and now that he’s got his head around it he’s pretty supportive.”
Danielle says the hardest part will be being away from son Christian (22 months) and husband Jonathan for a whole month.
So come February, the self-confessed homebody whose usual night off involves Coronation Street and a glass of wine, is off on her own toa place she’s never visited, to meet people she’s only spoken to online.
The bath she intends to live in will be placed outside the aquarium and won’t be filled with water. Danielle’s plan was to pass the entire month in the tub but she had a change of heart when she realised it would be sited next door to a six-lane highway. Instead, she’ll spend 6am to 10pm in the tub, showering and sleeping at one of her supporters’ homes. Just like Lolita, if Danielle wants to eat she’ll have to perform tricks. But the hardest part will be leaving Christian just a day after his second birthday. While this doting mum will send him videos via her phone every night, she won’t see him or hear his voice for the whole month.
“The longest I’ve been apart from Christian was two nights for a wedding. We do everything together,” she says sadly. “But it gives you an idea of what Lolita is going through. She’s not a mother but she’s a daughter and orcas stay with their families forever – they don’t leave their sides.”
Lolita the orca – who performs daily tricks at Miami Seaquarium – was captured in the wild 45 years ago when just a baby.
Danielle is one of a long list of protesters against orca captivity – a Marineland Animal Defense protester once spent 36 hours in a tub filled with water and PETA protesters have appeared naked, except for black and white body paint, in a tub in New York in winter. The Jackass TV show’s Steve-O went a step too far and received a 30-day sentence when he scaled a New York crane holding an inflatable orca inscribed with the words ”SeaWorld sucks”.
Danielle says she admires anyone who speaks up for the animals who can’t. And she hopes her protest could be the start of something big. “I’m getting so much satisfaction now that I know I’m helping Lolita, and there are so many more animals in the world that need help,” she says. “I do have this overwhelming urge, but next time I’d like to take the family with me!”
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
