SeaWorld in Trouble Over Chicago Travel Expo: PETA Protest Planned

Demonstrators to Decry Amusement Park Exhibit Putting Wild Animals Into Crowd Scenario

For Immediate Release:
January 16, 2015

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Bearing a large orca prop that proclaims, “Let Them Go Free,” a throng of PETA supporters will converge outside the Chicago Travel & Adventure Show to protest SeaWorld’s plan to promote its parks and exhibit a large number of captive animals in front of the expo crowds.

When:   Saturday, January 17, 12 p.m.

Where:  Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, Hall F, 5555 N. River Rd. (at the intersection with Bryn Mawr Avenue), Rosemont

“Sensitive, shy wild animals don’t belong in the noisy crowds of a travel expo any more than orcas belong in SeaWorld’s tiny concrete tanks,” says PETA Foundation Deputy General Counsel Delcianna Winders. “PETA is calling on families to stay far away from SeaWorld and all animal parks that exploit animals for the sake of entertainment.”

Last year, a New York City restaurant pulled the plug on SeaWorld’s 50^th anniversary bash after learning from PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—that transporting wild animals across the country for photo ops and forcing them into close public contact leaves them agitated and frightened and that SeaWorld’s very business model revolves around locking far-ranging orcas in tiny concrete tanks, where they suffer physically and psychologically from the constant deprivation of confinement.

For more information, please visit SeaWorldOfHurt.com.