Lala Kent to Push for Orca’s Release at SeaWorld’s Annual Meeting

For Immediate Release:
June 12, 2023

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Tomorrow, Vanderpump Rules star Lala Kent will attend SeaWorld’s virtual annual shareholder meeting on PETA’s behalf to demand that executives release Corky, the longest-held captive orca in the world, to a seaside sanctuary. Her question, below, comes on the heels of the Miami Seaquarium’s announcement that it plans to move the orca Lolita to such a sanctuary:

“Corky was violently torn away from her family and ocean home in 1969, when she was just 4 years old. She was used for years as a breeding machine and bred with her own cousin six times. None of her babies survived past 47 days. She has been confined longer than any other orca and has little to do but swim in endless circles in a tiny tank at SeaWorld.

While the company continues to draw public outrage over its treatment of Corky and other animals, the Miami Seaquarium is being lauded for its plan to move Lolita, an orca captured less than a year after Corky, to a seaside sanctuary—a landmark move making it clear that it’s high time to correct these grievous wrongs.

My question is this: When will SeaWorld do its reputation a favor by creating a plan to move Corky to a seaside sanctuary, where she would have the opportunity to feel currents, dive deep, and possibly even be reunited with her family?”

More than 40 orcas and over 500 other dolphins and whales have died in SeaWorld’s concrete tanks, many of them prematurely, and those who remain can do little but swim in circles and lash out at each other in frustration. This eyewitness video footage shows one attack among orcas at the park—which resulted in a serious wound to an orca believed to be Corky.

PETA explains that attacks of this kind are rare in wild orca populations and that when they do occur, orcas can flee from conflict to avoid injury. SeaWorld’s barren tanks, however, prevent the animals from making that evasive move—and from engaging in other natural forms of behavior, including foraging and diving.

Kent previously appeared in an anti–SeaWorld campaign with Vanderpump costars Scheana Shay and Ariana Madix. They’re part of a long list of celebrities—including Joan Jett, P!nk, Noah Cyrus, Bella Thorne, and Steve Aoki—who have teamed up with PETA to speak out against cruel marine parks.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.