Written by Jeff Mackey
As someone who first took part in a Pride parade way back in the '80s (I was just a child, of course), I can confirm that LGBT folks love to twerk it to a sickening (in a good way) bass beat. But for captive marine mammals—many of whom navigate using an intricate sonar system—those loud noises are sickening in the worst way. That's why Project Runway's style guru and father figure, Tim Gunn, has joined PETA in appealing to the organizers of Atlanta Pride to move their annual kickoff party somewhere other than the Georgia Aquarium.
© StarMaxInc.com
Tim stands alongside LGBT luminaries Jane Lynch and Martina Navratilova—as well as thousands of concerned Pride supporters—in requesting that the event be relocated. In his letter to the Atlanta Pride executive director, Tim asks, "As a leader of Pride, you champion the human rights of the individuals in the LGBT community. How is it possible to be simultaneously dismissive of the pain and anguish suffered by another species of mammal?"
How You Can Help
Those who have experienced prejudice and oppression should know better than to inflict suffering on anyone else. Please ask Atlanta Pride to move the kickoff party to one of the city's many other venues.
Written by Paula Moore
The Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta is coming under heavy fire for its outrageous plan to import 18 wild-caught beluga whales from Russia, subject them to a nonlife in captivity, and use them as breeding machines to churn out more babies for profiteers at marine parks and aquariums across the country.
In an article for National Geographic titled "Should We Import Belugas for Display?" Virginia Morell takes issue with the idea that aquariums "need" more captive beluga whales. "Those in captivity now will grow old, perhaps lonely, and die," says Morell. "But to replace them will cause other belugas harm and grief—because it can only be done by tearing apart families that are doing fine now in the wild." Exactly!
Morell describes for readers the rich lives that belugas lead in their natural homes:
[T]hey are highly social, gregarious creatures; they make long migrations; they have an impressive range of calls, and like dolphins (to which they are distantly related) use these in a variety of ways, including imitating one another. (A just-released study shows that captive belugas can also imitate humans.) They like to hang out in the summer in shallow coastal waters in large groups (sometimes numbering in the thousands), which are most likely made up of close relatives—mothers, dads, and kids, aunts and uncles, and cousins. Sometimes, they make solo journeys just to visit other groups—a behavior that reminds me of elephants, who sometimes leave their families to visit clan members far away.
Compare this to life in their own diluted waste in a small cement tank, where belugas and other marine mammals spend their days swimming in endless circles, deprived of everything that they enjoy, even the use of echolocation. Aquarium visitors come, spend a few hours, buy some souvenirs, and then go home and carry on with their lives. Animals in aquariums will remain in the same tanks until the day they die.
Your Voice Is Needed!
Please help us stop the Georgia Aquarium's cruel and misguided plans. Take a moment today to contact the National Marine Fisheries Service and let officials know why they should deny the Georgia Aquarium a permit to import wild-caught beluga whales.
Kim Basinger has offered her support for PETA's campaign to dissuade the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) from issuing a permit to the Georgia Aquarium to export 18 beluga whales from Russia to the U.S. to breed them for exhibition. The Oscar winner and Georgia native has sent a letter to the chief of the agency's Permits and Conservation Division asking him to oppose the aquarium's reckless plan.
Beluga whales are sensitive marine mammals with complex physical and psychological needs. But if the NOAA issues this permit, these whales will be forced to make a dangerous journey, after which they will be imprisoned—in tiny tanks that are as confining as bathtubs are to humans—for the rest of their lives.
The proposed breeding program would be a huge step in the wrong direction. We should be getting animals out of captivity, not imposing miserable and maddening life sentences on more of them. In fact, newer facilities such as Ripley's Aquarium of Canada—currently under construction in Toronto—are deciding not to house marine mammals at all.
There is a public hearing on Friday, October 12, for NOAA to hear comments about this issue. Please join Kim Basinger and PETA in urging officials to spare these whales a lifetime of suffering by denying the Georgia Aquarium's permit request.
Written by Michelle Kretzer
Although some aquariums are still willing to host raucous parties despite knowing that the pounding music is hell on marine mammals' sensitive sonar systems, more progressive aquariums are refusing. Case in point: Rocker Tony Kanal teamed up with PETA to let the under-construction Ripley's Aquarium of Canada in Toronto know that rock belongs in arenas, not aquariums. Here's his letter asking the aquarium not to allow rowdy parties if it intends to keep whales and dolphins in the building:
Almost immediately, Tony received this positive response:
We share your concerns regarding loud noises on marine mammals in both the wild as well as in marine facilities. I would like to inform you that we will not be holding marine mammals in our aquarium.
Not only is Ripley's saving whales and dolphins from becoming disoriented and agitated when deafening music disrupts their ability to navigate and communicate via sonar, the aquarium is also saving them from the lifetime of frustration, illness, and stress that they would have had in captivity.
While all marine mammals deserve their freedom, the least that aquariums can do is not torment them with blasting music. Join Jane Lynch in asking Atlanta Pride to move its upcoming party to a more humane venue than the Georgia Aquarium, and join Tommy Lee in asking SeaWorld to cancel its loud "Shamu Rocks" shows.
Last year, Atlanta Pride's raucous party at the Georgia Aquarium raised the ire of many members of the LGBT community. PETA Vice President Dan Mathews, who is gay, attended the party to ask the organizers to consider a different location in the future. When he published a piece in The Huffington Post describing what he observed and what aquarium employees told him about how the loud, booming music torments the aquarium's marine mammals, who navigate and communicate via sensitive sonar systems, people jumped to the animals' defense. But Atlanta Pride has planned another party, with amplifiers aplenty, at the Georgia Aquarium. And again, gay animal rights advocates are calling "party foul."
brian.gratwicke | cc by 2.0
In captivity, these whales have little room for exercise and are cut off from their natural social groups.
Jane Lynch wrote to Buck Cooke, managing director of Atlanta Pride, on PETA's behalf and urged him to move the party to a more humane venue:
Many of the marine mammals at the aquarium are extremely sensitive to sound, and large parties create an even more stressful environment than they already endure in captivity. Animals such as beluga whales and dolphins communicate with one another by means of an intricate sonar system. The excess noise disorients them, thwarts their ability to communicate, and sometimes causes them to attack one another …. Given the animals' extreme sensitivity to noise, the aquarium does not seem like an appropriate venue for such a large and festive gathering.
Animal advocates and the LGBT community often work hand in hand because we both understand oppression and cruelty, so there's nothing to be proud of about a Pride event that hurts animals. Please contact Atlanta Pride Managing Director Buck Cooke today and urge him to switch the event's kickoff party to a more humane venue. Atlanta Pride should be a positive, enjoyable experience for everyone, including the animals.
Written by PETA
Shadow and Chambers, two dolphins who were forced to perform at a Swiss aquarium, died after a rave party was held at the facility. Authorities are trying to determine the cause of death, which possibly includes being blasted with deafeningly loud music or being poisoned by narcotics dropped into their tank.
PETA Germany had sent an urgent appeal to aquarium management and veterinary officials to cancel the rave and is now poised to file a lawsuit against those responsible if the necropsies (expected to take several weeks) determine that the rave was connected with Shadow's and Chambers' deaths.
Dolphins, whales, rays, and other fish and sea life confined to cramped tanks in aquariums already have it bad enough without being subjected to the stress of loud parties put on by marine parks in an attempt to make a few extra bucks. As PETA Senior Vice President Dan Mathews recounted after attending a party at the Georgia Aquarium, three guides admitted that music at such parties upsets the animals and causes them to fight.
In the wild, dolphins swim together in family pods or tribes of hundreds. Photo: lowjumpingfrog | cc by 2.0
Never buy a ticket to the Georgia Aquarium, SeaWorld or any other facility that profits from keeping animals in captivity.
Written by Jennifer O'Connor
Her Highness of Halloween, Elvira, knows a thing or two about fright. And there are few things that she finds as terrifying as imprisoning marine mammals in an aquarium and forcing them to endure pounding music reverberating through their cramped tanks. But that's just what the ghouls at the Georgia Aquarium plan to do this Halloween.
The aquarium is apparently ignoring the complaint that PETA filed after the facility hosted a recent event with loud music that was visibly distressing to the marine animals, who are very sensitive to excessive noise. Elvira penned a letter to the aquarium's president and COO, saying:
"[T]hree separate aquarium employees said that many of the confined wild animals become aggravated and even fight when the music gets pumping—and they have no safe room to escape to. This disturbs me more than Freddy vs. Jason."
Hopefully, the Mistress of the Dark will help the aquarium see the light.
Written by Michelle Sherrow
After witnessing an ear-splitting dance party at the Georgia Aquarium to kick off Atlanta Pride festivities, PETA Senior Vice President Dan Mathews sent a letter to the aquarium's president and COO David Kimmel to set the record straight about how this kind of audio torture of animals is not only inappropriate but also likely a violation of Georgia's cruelty-to-animals law:
Despite actual knowledge that music and other noises at this volume are profoundly distressing to, at the very least, the belugas and the animals they attack when this stress and frustration manifests itself as aggression … the aquarium continues to willfully subject the animals in its care to excessive noise during planned events.
Dan described his experience at the prison aquarium in detail in a Huffington Post blog post, noting that belugas have a sophisticated sonar system that helps them navigate the arctic waters in which they swim thousands of miles every year in large, social groups. In captivity, the sonar bounces off tank walls, frustrating the animals. Dan spoke (or rather, shouted) with a tour guide who acknowledged that during high-volume events, the male belugas start to attack the harbor seals with whom they share a tank.
© Dave Riganelli/ iStockphoto.com
When PETA friend and gay rights supporter Martina Navratilova heard that Atlanta Pride held an event at the aquarium, she told Dan, "I cringe at any zoo or a theme park/aquarium with captive animals. But the big ones, whales, dolphins, giraffes, elephants, etc., the big cats—they make me cry."
You can help the animals affected by this event by contacting the Georgia Aquarium to ask that it implement a policy immediately that would allow only soft ambient or classical music at events. After all, it's not as though the animals don't have enough stress already by being held captive in a tank that—to them—is the size of a bathtub.
Written by Heather Faraid Drennan
A new attraction at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta is being touted as a Broadway-style show, complete with costumed actors, animation projected on a huge screen, music recorded by a 61-piece orchestra, and, oh yeah, dolphins imprisoned for life in a chlorinated tank. Fun for the whole family—unless the family has a conscience.
The aquarium claims to pride itself on playing "a role in animal conservation," but in an opinion piece published in today's Atlanta Journal Constitution, PETA staffer Jen O'Connor points out that the aquarium spent $110 million on its splashy new dolphin exhibit—nearly 100 times the amount it spent on dolphin conservation. What's wrong with this Broadway-style picture?
"In the wild, dolphins swim together in family pods up to 100 miles a day," writes Jen. "They navigate by bouncing sonar waves off objects to determine location and distance. In captivity, their ocean worlds are reduced to claustrophobic swimming pools. Most aquariums keep antacids on hand to treat the animals' stress-related ulcers."
Dolphins are so intelligent that a neuroscientist at Emory University has recommended that they be given the same status as humans, and a professor of ethics at Loyola Marymount University backed her up by saying, "The scientific research suggests that dolphins are 'non-human persons' who qualify for moral understanding as individuals." Would we lock up humans for life, just so that they could entertain a crowd for 25 minutes? The human actors in the Georgia Aquarium show get to go home to the families at the end of the day—not so for the dolphin performers.
"Try to imagine living in the same cramped place for the rest of your life," writes Jen. "Animals who are genetically designed to swim the vast oceans are no more able to adjust to lifelong captivity than we are. That's why prison is considered society's harshest punishment."
Read Jen's entire essay here.
Written by Alisa Mullins
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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