PETA ‘Orcas’ to Protest Rose Parade HQ Over SeaWorld Float Fraud
Group Will Encourage Everyone to Watch Blackfish Documentary to See the Abuse and Misery Behind Killer Whale Captivity
For Immediate Release:
November 6, 2013
Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382
Pasadena, Calif. – Accompanied by two activists in orca costumes and holding signs that read, “Watch Blackfish! Kick SeaWorld Out of Rose Parade” and “Take Orca Abuse out of the Rose Parade,” a group of PETA members will gather outside the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association headquarters in Pasadena on Thursday. Their point? That the SeaWorld-sponsored float in this year’s parade—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 are forced to perform cheap, circus-style tricks.
When: Thursday, November 7, 12 noon
Where: Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association headquarters, 391 S. Orange Grove Blvd., 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 is calling on the Rose Parade to start the new year off right by refusing to allow SeaWorld to promote its miserable captive-orca shows during this family-friendly event.”
Blackfish tells the story of Tilikum, the orca who killed SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau—his third human victim—in 2010, and explores how locking intelligent, sensitive marine mammals in concrete tanks and depriving them of all that’s natural and important to them can lead them to violent acts of frustration and perhaps revenge killings. In the wild, orcas share intricate relationships with one another, swim as far as 100 miles every day, and work cooperatively to find food. Many orcas at SeaWorld, including Tilikum, were rounded up rodeo-style and taken from their family pods in the wild. At least 23 orcas have died in U.S. SeaWorld facilities since 1986—and not one died of old age.
For more information, please visit SeaWorldOfHurt.com.
