WestJet Drops SeaWorld Support After PETA Appeal

Airline Removes All Mention of Abusement Park From Its Website and Promotional Materials

For Immediate Release:
August 29, 2018

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

A box of delicious whale-shaped vegan chocolates is on its way from PETA as a thank-you gift to WestJet, which recently ended its promotional support of SeaWorld. The airline’s move comes after correspondence with PETA and more than 160,000 e-mails from concerned citizens asking it to cut ties with the park.

“No compassionate company today is willing to associate itself with SeaWorld’s orca prisons,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on kind consumers to stay away from SeaWorld and choose to do business with travel providers such as WestJet that have pledged to do the same.”

At least 40 orcas, over 300 other dolphins and whales, and approximately 450 seals, sea lions, and walruses have died at SeaWorld’s parks. The company has laid off more than 1,100 employees in recent years and just announced an initial $4 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission related to possible violations of federal securities law. It’s also facing a class-action lawsuit by investors and a criminal fraud investigation, and its largest shareholder, Zhonghong Zhuoye Group Co., Ltd., had to sell off an island resort complex last month that was to be turned into a SeaWorld park.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—pushed for SeaWorld to ban orca breeding, which it eventually did, and is urging the company to close its tiny tanks and move the orcas and other animals to seaside sanctuaries where they could enjoy a more natural life.

WestJet joins a growing list of companies—including Hyundai Motor America, JetBlue, Panama Jack, Southwest Airlines, Taco Bell, and Thomas Cook—that have cut ties with SeaWorld.

For more information, please visit SeaWorldOfHurt.com.