SeaWorld Makes PETA’s ‘Naughty’ List for Its ‘Whale Jails’
For Immediate Release:
December 17, 2020
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
With Christmas just around the corner, PETA is releasing its “naughty” list of 11 top animal-offending companies, checking it twice, and urging the Scrooges to change their ways—and SeaWorld has landed on the list for continuing to breed dolphins and whales forcibly and confine them to concrete tanks of chemically treated water.
“All PETA wants for Christmas is for SeaWorld to stop profiting from marine mammals’ misery,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “Ending its sordid breeding programs and developing seaside sanctuaries would go a long way toward giving orcas, bottlenose dolphins, belugas, and other animals a little peace on Earth.”
In nature, orcas and other dolphins choose their own partners and swim long distances in harmonious family pods. But at SeaWorld, they’re housed in incompatible groups in small tanks, leading to violent bullying and fighting, and belugas and bottlenose dolphins are forcibly bred, sometimes after being drugged. Over 40 orcas and nearly 300 other dolphins have died at SeaWorld’s parks, and just last week, a PETA veterinarian exposed the COVID-19 risk to both captive animals and human visitors at SeaWorld.
Other companies on PETA’s “naughty” list include Starbucks, which profits from a 60-cent upcharge on eco-friendly, dairy-free milk; Petco, where horrified customers have found dead betta fish floating in tiny plastic cups right on store shelves; and Urban Outfitters, which sells clothing made of wool and other materials stolen from terrified animals.
PETA’s motto is “Animals are not ours to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way,” and the group opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
