Video: Protesters Use ‘Crime Scene’ Tape to Seal Off SeaWorld Booth at Travel Expo

PETA Campaign Against Amusement Park’s Cruel Orca Tanks, Exhibition of Wild Animals in Crowded Expo Centers Escalates

For Immediate Release:
January 24, 2015

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

The crowds at The New York Times Travel Show may have wondered what was happening on Saturday, when PETA supporters surrounded the SeaWorld booth, where the company was promoting its parks and using live penguins as props, and literally labeled the exhibit a crime scene. While some protesters sealed off the booth with yellow crime scene tape, others produced signs condemning SeaWorld’s tiny concrete tanks and orca captivity. The protest was conducted in silence because of the presence of animals exploited by SeaWorld. Video of the interruption is available here.

“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 involves 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.