SeaWorld’s value and reputation continue to decline—as evidenced by a steady drop in attendance numbers and revenue, a class-action lawsuit by investors, a consumer-protection lawsuit by visitors, a criminal fraud investigation, and nearly 1,000 layoffs since the release of Blackfish—and PETA, which has owned stock in the company since it became publicly available in 2013, submitted a shareholder resolution today calling on it to ban all breeding. The company banned orca breeding after PETA filed a resolution in 2016.
© iStock.com/benedek“It’s clearer than ever that today’s public simply doesn’t support SeaWorld’s cruel animal prisons,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s shareholder resolution calls on SeaWorld to save itself by ending all animal breeding and focusing instead on modern displays and entertainment that don’t harm animals.”
In its shareholder resolution, PETA notes that SeaWorld breeds socially complex animals into a life of captivity and often forces them to live in incompatible groups inside small enclosures, and many die prematurely. To breed dolphins, SeaWorld trainers masturbate male ones and sedate females so that they’ll endure the invasive and traumatizing artificial insemination process. Forcibly breeding animals to spend their lives in captivity is indefensible, especially since hundreds of dolphins have already died in SeaWorld’s tanks. In the last year alone, three orcas, a Commerson’s dolphin calf, a newborn beluga calf, Szenja the polar bear, and Bruiser the walrus all died at SeaWorld parks.
It’s high time that the callous company also freed its remaining prisoners.
