Uxbridge Native Heads to Court for Protesting SeaWorld at Rose Parade

For Immediate Release:
January 30, 2014

Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382

When SeaWorld’s float hit the Rose Parade on January 1, it was met by a group of PETA supporters—including Uxbridge, Mass., native Kenneth Montville—who sat down in front of it in a peaceful protest against SeaWorld’s abuse of orcas. The protesters, holding posters that read, “Boycott SeaWorld,” and wearing “SeaWorld Hurts Orcas” T-shirts, were dragged from the parade route and arrested, and Montville will head to court in Pasadena, Calif., on February 3.

Kenneth Montville moved to Uxbridge at age 3 and spent the rest of his childhood there. After graduating from Blackstone Valley Tech, he attended Fanshawe College in London, Ontario, where he was treasurer of the social-justice club and helped organize film screenings, protests, and tabling events. He also attended the University of Western Ontario, where he was a member of Students for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

After leaving college, Montville joined PETA’s youth division, peta2, as a tour contractor. He traveled nonstop for six months, accompanying concert tours and music festivals, gathering more than 250,000 signatures on a petition to ban gestation crates, and educating young people about the environmental devastation caused by factory farming as part of peta2’s “Meat’s Not Green” campaign.

Montville now works as a college campaign coordinator, liaising with student activists and assisting them with organizing protests and other events. He also helps coordinate peta2’s “Glass Walls” display—an interactive exhibit featuring an inflatable barn, free vegan food, and PETA’s factory farming exposé narrated by Paul McCartney—which travels to colleges all over the country educating students about cruelty in the animal-agriculture industry.

In his spare time, Montville, an avid runner, has participated in three half-marathons to raise money for PETA.