The crowds at the D.C. Travel & Adventure Show may have wondered what was happening today, when PETA supporters descended on SeaWorld’s booth—where the company was promoting its parks and using live penguins, a live monkey, and a live frog as props—condemning SeaWorld’s orca captivity. The protest was conducted in silence because of the presence of animals exploited by SeaWorld.
“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 other parks that exploit animals for the sake of entertainment.”
Last year, a New York City restaurant pulled the plug on SeaWorld’s 50th 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 small tanks, where they suffer physically and psychologically from the constant deprivation of confinement.
