MARINELAND, Fla. – Her eyes are cloudy now, a blueish-gray haze blocking out some of the sunlight that glints off the water in her habitat.

She doesn’t always move as nimbly as the dozen other dolphins sharing her space, either.
But that’s OK, because Nellie has something they don’t.

She has seniority – 59 years of it, more than double the normal age of an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin. And those eyes, before a hint of cataracts snuck in and stole the sharpness of her vision, have witnessed many of the triumphs, declines and rebirths of Marineland, Florida’s first theme park.