PETA’s Campaign Against SeaWorld Is Flying High on Lufthansa

Passengers Will Read About SeaWorld’s Cruelty on Flights to Orlando

For Immediate Release:
January 3, 2017

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Soon, German tourists will likely be saying nein to SeaWorld. PETA has placed its anti-SeaWorld ad in Lufthansa’s magazine on flights from Germany to the abusement park’s hometown of Orlando. The ad features an orca in a tiny fishbowl under the words “Don’t Support SeaWorld: Orcas Suffer in Captivity.” The striking image is intended to remind people who are considering purchasing a ticket to SeaWorld that their money will allow the company to continue holding Blackfish subject Tilikum and 22 other orcas in captivity.

“Humans can traverse the ocean whenever they like,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “But the orcas held captive in SeaWorld’s concrete tanks are denied the opportunity to feel the ocean’s currents, swim freely, dive, use their sonar, raise their families, and live with their pods. PETA urges travelers to steer clear of the company’s parks until it retires the animals it holds captive to seaside sanctuaries, where they can finally have some semblance of a natural life.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—notes that in the wild, orcas swim as far as 100 miles every day. At SeaWorld, they can swim only in endless circles in barren tanks—the equivalent of forcing a human to live in a bathtub. The force of gravity in the shallow tanks causes their dorsal fins to collapse. Mothers and babies are often torn apart and shipped to different parks. Many orcas break their teeth from gnawing on metal tank bars out of stress, and they’re often given the drug diazepam to manage psychotic behavior. Since 1986, at least 26 of them have died in U.S. SeaWorld facilities—and not one died of old age.

For more information, please visit SeaWorldOfHurt.com.