To our respected friends and family,
We hope this finds you well.
For several years, we have collectively been working to bring Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut home in a good way.
We are excited to now launch a capital campaign to secure a site for her in the Salish Sea.
Your moral and spiritual support has been invaluable, and your financial support to the Tokitae Fund at SacredSea.org has allowed us to create a legal foundation for our cultural, spiritual, and kinship claims; engage in public outreach; and commission a robust operational plan for Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut’s return home. Hy’shqe!
We are well-positioned to move to the next phase of our work: finding a site for her Xwlemi Tokw (Lummi Home), and doing the necessary leasing, permitting, negotiations, and outreach to bring her home.
The stakes are higher than ever, but we also now have more reason than ever to hope for her return.
The recently released USDA inspection report showed that the Miami Seaquarium is literally falling apart and that those held captive, including Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut, are suffering.
In response, we have called for an independent medical examination and behavioral assessment, and for her immediate physical needs to be addressed.
While some of the issues (i.e. rotten food) are easily fixed, there will remain the long-standing structural problems: her tank is simply too small, too barren, too isolating, too exposed, and too vulnerable to increasingly strong hurricanes.
And of course Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut’s needs can never truly be met in a concrete tank. She needs to come home, to be in the enriching ocean environment of the Salish Sea, to receive ongoing care that is centered on her well-being, not on her ability to perform tricks and make money for a corporation.
We believe that collaboration, rather than litigation, will be the fastest, healthiest way to bring our relation home.
To this end, we want to show the Dolphin Company, the USDA and any other involved governmental agencies, that we have a scientifically sound, culturally appropriate alternative to her concrete tank. We want to show them that we are ready to receive her.
In order to be ready, we need to have her home site secured.
This is where Phase 1 of our capital campaign comes in. We are starting a GoFundMe specifically to fundraise for costs related to securing her home site. In Phase 1, we hope to raise $100,000 in online donations.
Phase 2 of our capital campaign will start in 2022, when we will begin collecting pledges to put the operational plan into action. If and when Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut is released, those pledges will be called in and will pay for all costs from her initial assessment and transport through to the first years of operation of her Xwlemi Tokw.
All funds previously collected through our Sacred Sea donation page have gone to the Tokitae Fund, and have directly supported our work for Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut. We will continue to accept funds at this site for our broader Salish Sea Campaign.
Hy’shqe for your continued love, prayers, ceremonies, interest, and support! We are Netse Mot, of one heart and one mind, for Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut and the healing she represents!
