PETA Statement: SeaWorld Gets the Jitters, Locks Surf Champ and PETA Out of Virtual Shareholder Meeting

For Immediate Release:
June 10, 2015

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Today, PETA and world surfing champion Kelly Slater were prevented from submitting PETA’s shareholder question during SeaWorld’s online meeting, which should not have happened, as PETA (whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”) owns a stake in the company. A statement from PETA Foundation Director of Animal Law Jared Goodman follows:

Kelly Slater, on PETA’s behalf, planned to point out to shareholders that if SeaWorld cared about orcas, as it likes to claim, it would stop its disgusting and unnatural inbreeding program and turn its tawdry abusement parks into coastal sanctuaries. In sea pens, orcas could swim in ocean water instead of in chemically treated waste water, hear and answer the calls of their extended families, and begin to live truly as orcas in a protected area of the ocean. PETA will push SeaWorld to make this change, and we’re exploring our legal options over SeaWorld’s lock-out of dissenting voices who speak for the animals they hold prisoner.

For more information, please visit SeaWorldOfHurt.com.