Video: 27-Hour, 150-Mile ‘Run for Corky’s Freedom’ Pushes for Orca’s Release from SeaWorld

For Immediate Release:
December 9, 2024

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

San Diego –

To demand that SeaWorld release Corky—the longest-held captive orca in the world—into a seaside sanctuary, a pack of PETA supporters spent this past weekend running from Los Angeles to SeaWorld’s home turf of San Diego. As a new PETA video released today highlights, the relay runners bore a pair of “bolt cutters” as a baton and bore aloft a giant inflatable orca as they ran for 27 hours to cover 150 miles—the distance Corky could swim in a single day in nature—and drew parallels between the miles they covered and heartbreaking details from Corky’s life:

Six: The number of times Corky was bred with her own cousin (with none of the calves surviving past 47 days)
30: The number of orca companions Corky would travel with every day if she hadn’t been stolen from her ocean home
‘69: The year Corky was kidnapped from her family in the oceans off British Columbia and sold into the entertainment industry, 55 years ago

Left: PETA supporters carry an inflatable orca on the 150-mile “Race for Corky’s Freedom.”

“Nothing can undo the misery Corky has endured for the last 55 years, kept prisoner and forced to swim in endless circles in tiny, barren tanks, but SeaWorld still has a chance to do the right thing,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange, who ran 16 miles of the relay. “PETA is calling for Corky’s release to a seaside sanctuary, where she could dive deep, swim freely, and have a semblance of the life she’s been denied, before it’s too late.”

In their natural habitat, orcas have sophisticated social relationships, working cooperatively to find food and traveling vast distances in the open ocean every day. But at SeaWorld, they’re housed in tiny tanks that leave them with nothing to do but float listlessly or swim in endless circles while enduring stress, frustration, and depression. Over 200,000 PETA supporters to date have urged SeaWorld to develop a firm and rapid plan to release Corky to a seaside sanctuary in her home waters in British Columbia—which a team of experts is already preparing for her.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.