Tommy Lee might be one of the "bad boys of rock," but he's always good to animals. While on tour in Southern California, the upside-down drummer flipped right side up to tell SeaWorld San Diego that it wasn't welcome to use his music at its "Shamu Rocks" shows. During these shows, sound-sensitive captive orcas are forced to perform while rock music blasts through the tank and lights flash all around them.

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In a letter penned on PETA's behalf to SeaWorld San Diego President John T. Reilly, Tommy wrote:

Tommy noted that while all of SeaWorld's captive animals should be released to sanctuaries, the least the park can do is spare orcas from being forced to perform while loud music terrifies and confuses them. To find out more about how orcas suffer in the tanks at SeaWorld, check out David Kirby's new book Death at SeaWorld. 

Collapsed dorsal fins are rarely seen in the wild, and when they do occur in the wild, it's usually only in orcas who are injured or ill.
Olivier Bruchez|cc by 2.0

You don't have to be a rock star to be a rock star for animals. Tell Reilly to stop tormenting orcas and cancel the "Shamu Rocks" shows.

The release of a video showing Kasatka, a wild-caught orca enslaved at SeaWorld, exploding in extreme frustration at trainer Ken Peters in front of visitors to the theme park is sending shockwaves of outrage and dismay through the media and the public over the appalling pressures of captivity on orcas and other wild marine mammals—and the danger to those who come into contact with them.

As David Kirby describes in his book Death at SeaWorld, when Kasatka heard her calf's distress calls for her from another tank, she dragged Peters underwater repeatedly, shaking him about before the stunned audience. Eventually gaining his freedom, Peters required surgery for his injuries. But SeaWorld ignored the risks, permitting the perilous situations to continue.

This video footage was previously shown during the Secretary of Labor v. SeaWorld of Florida LLC trial, which resulted from the horrific death of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau during a disturbingly similar episode involving another captive orca, Tilikum. Judge Ken Welsch, who called the video "chilling," held SeaWorld liable for permitting hazardous interactions between humans and the huge, dangerously stressed animals.

What You Can Do

Please join PETA in asking The Blackstone Group—the company that owns SeaWorld—to release its animal captives into sanctuaries. And if you know people who are planning a trip to SeaWorld, encourage them to visit PETA's new website, SeaWorldOfHurt.com, to learn what kinds of cruelty their dollars would support.

PETA Files readers know that SeaWorld hurts animals, so PETA's new website, SeaWorld of Hurt aims to return the favor, hurting the marine mammal prison by showing people that its parks are no fun for animals. 

SeaWorld's cruelty to animals was widely publicized during PETA's landmark lawsuit in behalf of captive orcas, which broke legal ground and gave rise to the idea that all species deserve protection from slavery. Our lead counsel, Jeff Kerr, recently presented PETA's argument for the release of enslaved orcas at the Superpod conference on San Juan Island, a meeting of orca advocates scheduled to coincide with the annual gathering of the "J," "K," and "L" pods of the Southern Resident orca population.

Animal advocates discussed efforts to secure freedom for marine mammal prisoners, including PETA's lawsuit on behalf of Lolita, an orca captured in 1970 who continues to languish in solitary confinement at the Miami Seaquarium, despite the fact that her pod has since been given protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Meanwhile, we're moving the conversation from the courtroom to the chat room, aiming to educate would-be SeaWorld patrons and make the parks' profits sink like a rock.

Join us! Ask the Blackstone Group—the company that owns SeaWorld—to release the orcas to ocean sanctuaries that can provide them with an environment that is closer to what nature intended, and post PETA's action alert to your social-networking pages.

The, um, cheeky comedy stylings of Doug Stanhope may cause the oh-so-proper "ladies who lunch" crowd to suffer a fit of the vapors. But for the irreverent folks out there, Doug's point of view will be quite refreshing (check out his latest release on iTunes 'til you can catch him live), especially when it comes to matters involving animals.

Recently, Doug sat down to talk with PETA about the ridiculousness of "working animals" at SeaWorld and in circuses, the idiocy of fur-wearers, and his adopted animal companions. Enjoy!

There's big news today in a case that PETA has been tenaciously pursuing for some time: Consistent with the citations issued against SeaWorld in 2010, Administrative Law Judge Ken Welsch of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) found that SeaWorld is culpable for allowing its employees to interact directly with potentially dangerous orcas.

Olivier Bruchez|cc by 2.0

SeaWorld Knew the Risks

For years, PETA has implored SeaWorld to transfer the marine mammals it enslaves to transitional coastal sanctuaries because confining animals of such great size to severely inadequate tanks leads to miserable lives of desperation and frustration—and dangerous conditions for SeaWorld staffers.

After one orca, Tilikum, killed trainer Dawn Brancheau in front of horrified visitors at SeaWorld Orlando, PETA urged the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to pursue a citation against SeaWorld and provided it with compiled research on the history of deaths and injuries at the park and orca aggression in captivity. Today's OSHRC decision affirms that SeaWorld knew that allowing its employees to interact directly with orcas such as Tilikum could have serious or fatal results.

A History of Irresponsibility

While the judge modified the citation for "willful" violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act to "serious," adjusting the fine accordingly, he found that SeaWorld knew that there was a "substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result" from these interactions, yet it continued to allow them. He found SeaWorld's arguments that it wasn't aware of these hazards to be implausible and lambasted its corporate culture of placing the blame for dangerous incidents exclusively on trainers and discouraging trainers from stopping a show—even after an attack.

Information that came out of the testimony during a two-week hearing before Judge Welsch, as well as during previous proceedings, includes the following:

• A senior trainer testified that trainers who work with orcas receive special instruction on Tilikum as well as a "Tilly Talk," in which they're informed of Tilikum's involvement with two previous deaths and that if they enter the water with him, they may not survive. Despite these concerns, trainers were approved to work in close proximity with him and physically touch him at the water's edge.
• Chuck Tompkins, SeaWorld's corporate curator for zoological operations, testified that there are no specific steps for trainers to follow to respond to a life-threatening situation in the water and that their lives are ultimately up to their own "best judgment call." Tompkins admitted that the park does not even re-evaluate its protocols after an injury or death because it deems the injuries "a result of human error" and insisted that revising safety protocols is unnecessary. He also claimed that SeaWorld has "gotten a whole lot better" with the training process over time, despite, as government attorneys noted, the killing of two trainers in a two-month span.
• No high-level managers of animal training at SeaWorld are formally trained in animal behavior nor do they have any professional experience with orcas other that what they learned on the job at SeaWorld. In addition, the company has never called on an independent third party to review its incidents, protocols, or safety procedures.
• Senior SeaWorld employees oversaw orca training at Spain's Loro Parque theme park when trainer Alexis Martinez was killed after being rammed and dragged underwater by an orca named Keto—just two months before Brancheau's death. Judge Welsch saw through SeaWorld's attempt to distance itself from this park, as the killer whales are leased from SeaWorld, SeaWorld trainer Brian Rokeach was stationed at Loro Parque to supervise animal training, and all decisions about animal care and training were made in conjunction with SeaWorld's corporate headquarters.

While SeaWorld's own corporate incident log contains reports of more than 100 incidents of orca aggression at its parks, government attorneys brought up incident after incident that were left out of the log, including the attack leading to Brancheau's death and attacks by an orca who had a penchant for grabbing trainers' ponytails. Yet despite the premature deaths of four human beings—one from extensive internal bleeding—and more than 20 orcas at SeaWorld's parks, the company continues to put profits over humane concerns. Dawn Brancheau would be alive today if SeaWorld had heeded PETA's advice.

How You Can Help Orcas at SeaWorld

Please join PETA in politely asking David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for
occupational safety and health, to prohibit all direct contact with potentially dangerous animals. And, of course, never, ever go to SeaWorld or any other marine-animal park.

How do you like to celebrate your birthday? How 'bout rockin' out and helping animals? That's what birthday boy Morrissey did: When his vegan tour stopped in San Diego, SeaWorld's hometown, on May 22, the longtime animal advocate gave all of his bandmates PETA's "SeaWorld Sucks" T-shirts to wear onstage.

Joe Scarnici/FilmMagic

Joe Scarnici/FilmMagic

Any SeaWorld folks who were in the audience should have ducked their heads if Moz played "You Should Have Been Nice to Me" or "Shame Is the Name." What else did they expect from the guy who never misses an opportunity to speak up for animals?

Rock out for orcas with your own "SeaWorld Sucks" tee.

PETA is calling for a U.S. Department of Agriculture investigation after D.J., a 15-year-old Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, was found dead on the floor of his tank at the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi. Trainers said that D.J., short for De Janeiro, was acting unusual and not eating the day before he died. He is the second dolphin to die at the aquarium—Cobie, also just 15, died of pneumonia in 2007.

Docklands Tony|cc by 2.0
In the wild, dolphins swim up to 100 miles per day in family pods or tribes of hundreds. 

Untimely deaths are the rule for marine mammals in captivity. At SeaWorld alone, between 1986 and 2011, 25 orcas died—and not one from old age. The unending and debilitating stress of captivity weakens marine mammals' immune systems, causing them to die earlier than their wild counterparts, who live for decades. Those who don't succumb to intestinal gangrene, acute hemorrhagic pneumonia, pulmonary abscesses, chronic kidney disease, chronic cardiovascular failure, septicemia, influenza, or other health problems may take their own lives by hitting their heads against the sides of pools or simply not coming up for air.

Please watch dolphins only at the beach, not in tanks.

Barbie has been fur-free and an animal rights activist for years. But America's favorite doll has taken a dangerous turn, thanks to famous toymaker Mattel and infamous animal abuser SeaWorld. The companies have released a Whale Trainer Barbie, an ill-advised doll that would be more accurately called "Barbaric."

Fantaz | cc by 2.0

Not much could be in poorer taste than a children's toy that simultaneously glorifies animal abuse and a high risk of personal injury. So PETA wrote to Mattel requesting that if it continues to sell this doll, the company should at least make Whale Trainer Barbie realistic:

Far better that Mattel simply admit this was a false step and withdraw the doll.

If not, what's next? Grand Theft Auto Barbie?

Popular social-networking site Pinterest is great for sharing fashion tips, cool pictures, and recipes—and for calling out a business that abuses animals. When we saw that SeaWorld had started a Pinterest page, we knew we could use it to orcas' advantage.

Wonder what colorful words SeaWorld execs uttered when they saw this:

Anyone who went to SeaWorld's Pinterest page saw animal advocates' calls to release orca Tilikum and the other prisoners to a marine sanctuary.

While our Pinterest protest was a little good clean fun at SeaWorld's expense, we hope the execs are starting to see that no amount of their online hype will keep SeaWorld's cruelty covered up.

Help free Tilly!

Snooki sees the light, more trouble for SeaWorld, and the Oscars are starting to look a lot like a PETA gala. Here's what's going on in PETA's universe this week:

PETA News on Tumblr

Give us five minutes, and we'll give you all the latest animal rights news on PETA's Tumblr page.

• Don't read this if you're hungry. 
• Snooki shows that fur is so not for guidettes.
• Are dolphins and whales the next "people"?
• For perhaps the first time ever, a TV news crew captures a gruesome military trauma training exercise on animals in progress.
• Aww—a beautiful baby piglet. 
• SeaWorld is cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for letting a sea lion die in a drainpipe.
• This is how all elephants should be.
• Guess what the number one cause of Amazon deforestation is? Hint: You can't see the forest for the shoes.

New Features

• Penélope, Ryan, George, and Jessica will light up the red carpet on Oscar night, and they are just a few of the famous faces who are always ready to shine a light on important animal issues too.

New Action Alerts

• Help stop a South Carolina hoarder. One year after a PETA investigation shut down a hoarding facility, authorities still haven't filed cruelty-to-animals charges against the owner or banned her from acquiring more animals.
• Urge a Kansas City cemetery to stop killing deer. By placing simple covers over the spikes in its wrought-iron fencing, the cemetery could save countless deer from being impaled.
• Down gets ducks down. Sign the pledge to be down-free.