Another Whale Death Prompts PETA SeaWorld Protest

4-Year-Old Beluga Latest to Die Decades Short of Her Natural Life Expectancy

For immediate release: 
August 27, 2013

Contact:
David Perle, 202-483-7382

San Antonio, TX – Holding signs that read, “SeaWorld Is a Deathtrap,” PETA members will converge on SeaWorld in San Antonio on Wednesday. The action comes after the death of a 4-year-old beluga whale named Bella. Since 1993, more than a dozen belugas have died prematurely at SeaWorld San Antonio. The deaths of these animals recently led the Georgia Aquarium and SeaWorld to try to import new belugas from Russia to display and breed, but the U.S. government thwarted the move.

“The lives of belugas at SeaWorld consist of privation, stress, injury, and premature death,” says PETA Foundation Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Delcianna Winders. “If families care about animals’ lives and well-being, they need to stay far away from the dismal tanks at SeaWorld.”

Bella—like so many other marine mammals imprisoned at SeaWorld—died decades short of her species’ natural 35- to 50-year life expectancy in the wild. Whereas belugas in the ocean travel many miles in closely knit groups, at SeaWorld they’re confined to tanks that in human terms are equivalent to the size of a bathtub and forced to swim in endless circles.

Where: SeaWorld, at the intersection of N. Ellison Drive and Westover Hills Boulevard, San Antonio

When: Wednesday, August 28, 12 p.m.

For more information, please visit SeaWorldOfHurt.com.

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