James Cromwell Takes Over SeaWorld’s Orca Show

Shortly Before Announcement of Last Baby Orca Death, PETA Pal Addresses Park Visitors Regarding Cruelty to Orcas

For Immediate Release:
July 24, 2017

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Armed with a megaphone and wearing a shirt proclaiming, “SeaWorld Sucks,” Academy Award nominee James Cromwell has just led a group of PETA supporters in a takeover of SeaWorld’s “Orca Encounter” show, telling visitors about the company’s history of premature orca deaths. Live footage of the action was posted on PETA’s Facebook page and can be watched here.

The protest comes just hours after the death of 3-month-old orca Kyara at SeaWorld San Antonio, where she reportedly had been deprived of the daily nutrition that she needed and had been suffering from pneumonia—making her the 40^th orca to die on SeaWorld’s watch.

“Orcas deserve a full life in the ocean, not a life sentence of swimming endless circles until they drop dead from disease,” says Cromwell. “My friends at PETA and I want SeaWorld to move these intelligent animals to seaside sanctuaries without delay.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—notes that while orcas in the wild work cooperatively with their family members to find food and traverse up to 100 miles of ocean every day, those at SeaWorld are housed in incompatible groups inside tiny tanks and have even been given the drug diazepam to manage stress-induced aggressive behavior.

Photos will be available today. For more information, please visit SeaWorldOfHurt.com.