SeaWorld will find nothing but coal in its Christmas stocking this year. Attendance is down, SeaWorld’s stock has tanked, and the documentary Blackfish is still making waves. Corporations such as Virgin America, STA Travel, Taco Bell, and Southwest Airlines have severed their ties to the company, and shareholders have slapped it with a lawsuit. SeaWorld won’t even enter its float in this year’s Rose Parade.
The public is finding out that SeaWorld is the worst Grinch of all:
- In some wild populations, orca calves stay with their mothers for their entire lives. At SeaWorld, orca mothers and their babies are separated so the mothers can be turned into breeding machines and churn out future performers. The youngsters wail in anguish as they are forcibly taken away, and their mothers can do nothing but despair as their babies are separated from them forever.
- Wild orcas swim up to 100 miles a day and dive as deep as 1,000 feet. In SeaWorld’s tiny tanks, which are the equivalent of concrete bathtubs, all they can do is swim in endless circles in their own diluted urine.
At least 37 orcas have died at U.S. SeaWorld facilities from causes ranging from severe trauma to intestinal gangrene, and 62 bottlenose dolphins have died at SeaWorld parks in the last 10 years alone, including 16 stillborn babies.
4. Five orcas who were kidnapped from their ocean homes and families have lived in SeaWorld’s cramped tanks for decades.
5. Corky was kidnapped from her family in 1969 when she was only 3 years old and has suffered seven forced pregnancies. None of her calves survived more than 46 days. Her last stillborn fetus was found at the bottom of her holding tank.
6. Even though wild orcas and dolphins are naturally devoted to their young, captivity can leave them utterly unable to cope. Mothers sometimes attack and kill their newborn calves.
Give the orcas, dolphins, and other animals the best gift of all by refusing to buy a ticket to SeaWorld and spreading the word far and wide.
