PETA to Protest Rose Parade Over SeaWorld Float Fraud

Celebrating Cruelty to Animals Who Are Confined to Tanks, Miserable and Lonely, Makes a Mockery of Parade, Says Group

For Immediate Release:
October 23, 2013 

Contact: 
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382

Pasadena, Calif. — Holding signs that read, “Take Orca Abuse out of the Rose Parade,” a group of PETA members will gather outside the Rose Queen Announcement and Coronation ceremony to make clear their objections to the inclusion of a big-bucks SeaWorld-sponsored float in this year’s parade. The protesters will point out that the float—which depicts orcas leaping happy and free in a magnificent sea—bears no resemblance whatsoever to an orca’s life of severe confinement at SeaWorld, where these magnificent animals are kept restricted to tiny concrete tanks, breaking their teeth on the underwater bars, and forced to perform cheap, circus-style tricks.

When:   Thursday, October 24, 5:30 p.m.

Where:  3700 E. Sierra Madre Blvd., near the intersection with Riviera Drive, Pasadena

“It ruins the Rose Parade’s happy image to allow SeaWorld to buy its way in to promote its much-criticized and cruel theme parks,” says PETA Foundation Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Delcianna Winders. “PETA will make sure that families attending the Rose Parade see that a realistic SeaWorld float would show orcas swimming in endless circles and banging their heads in frustration and despair against the side of their concrete prisons.”

In the wild, orcas swim as far as 100 miles a day. But at SeaWorld, captive orcas—many of whom were taken from their ocean homes and family pods—continually turn in circles in small barren concrete tanks and live far short of their 60-year life expectancy. At least 23 orcas have died in U.S. SeaWorld facilities since 1986—and not one died of old age. SeaWorld has also been fined for allowing trainers in the water with frustrated orcas—which, as the high-profile death of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau demonstrates, can be fatal.

For more information, please visit SeaWorldOfHurt.com.