PETA Statement re Death of Beluga Whale Calf at SeaWorld

For Immediate Release:
July 13, 2015

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

SeaWorld is running out of belugas to exhibit and keeps trying to restock its displays—by importing wild belugas, for which an import permit was denied because of its likely harm to wild populations; by artificially inseminating belugas; and by shipping them across North America to breed, even though the captive breeding of belugas has repeatedly failed, resulting in dead calves like this one. If captive breeding does succeed, all that awaits the babies is a lifetime of deprivation, confinement, and depression in SeaWorld’s concrete tanks. If SeaWorld actually cared about animals, it would stop treating them like breeding machines and start building coastal sanctuaries for them.

— Jared Goodman, PETA Foundation Director of Animal Law