PETA’s Pod of Ornery ‘Orcas’ to Take Over Old Pasadena With a Whale of a Message: Get SeaWorld Float Out of the Rose Parade!
Display of Animals Frolicking in the Open Sea Doesn’t Hold Water, Says Group
For Immediate Release:
December 3, 2013
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Accompanied by five activists wearing orca costumes and holding signs that read, “Boycott SeaWorld” and “SeaWorld: Let Orcas Out of Prison,” PETA members will converge on two busy intersections in Old Pasadena on Wednesday and hand out leaflets that detail the suffering of orcas held captive at SeaWorld. Their point? That SeaWorld’s Rose Parade float—showing orcas leaping in the open sea—is deceptive in the extreme. SeaWorld deprives orcas of everything that’s natural and important to them when it violently takes them from their pods and sticks them in a tiny concrete tank, where they break their teeth by chewing on bars and bang their heads against the sides until they die of injuries, pneumonia, or other captivity-related causes.
When: Wednesday, December 4, 12 noon
Where: Intersection of Colorado Boulevard and Fair Oaks Avenue and the intersection of Colorado Boulevard and De Lacey Avenue, Old Pasadena
“Confining sophisticated orcas to tiny tanks is like keeping someone in a bathtub for life,” says Lisa Lange, PETA senior vice president of communications and a lifelong Pasadena resident. “SeaWorld causes immense animal suffering, and its recklessness has resulted in the deaths of human trainers. Why would the Rose Parade want to promote such cruelty and violence?”
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 40-year life expectancy. At least 25 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. PETA wants SeaWorld to fund the creation of coastal sanctuaries where its captive orcas can live out their lives in as natural a setting as possible.
For more information, please visit SeaWorldOfHurt.com.
