Written by Michelle Sherrow
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
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 2.0In 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:
[C]hildren were traumatized when they witnessed Tilikum pull trainer Dawn Brancheau underwater and kill her by thrashing her into the walls of the tank, separating her scalp and pulling her arm out of its socket. This was that particular orca's third human killing. Orcas in captivity are held prisoner in tiny concrete tanks, deprived of all that is natural to them. They suffer from extreme physical and psychological distress and what has been described as rage and frustration over their unnatural confinement and loss of family and all freedom. If you continue this partnership with SeaWorld, the doll should be made more realistic: It should have detachable limbs and be black and blue.
Far better that Mattel simply admit this was a false step and withdraw the doll.
If not, what's next? Grand Theft Auto Barbie?
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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:
Give us five minutes, and we'll give you all the latest animal rights news on PETA's Tumblr page.
Written by Jennifer OConnor
In what will now stand as the case that future generations will look back on as the one that broke legal ground for animals, captive orcas were represented in a U.S. federal court in a lawsuit that PETA filed against SeaWorld seeking to establish that five wild-caught orcas deserved protection under the Constitution's 13th Amendment, which prohibits slavery. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller was the first judge in U.S. history to listen to arguments and give careful consideration to the idea that the definition of slavery does not exclude any species. Yesterday, Judge Miller ruled that the 13th Amendment doesn't apply to nonhumans.
There is no question that SeaWorld enslaves animals even though the judge in this case didn't see the 13th Amendment as the remedy to that. Women, children, and racial and ethnic minorities were once denied fundamental constitutional rights that are now self-evident, and that day will certainly come for the orcas and all the other animals enslaved for human amusement.
This historic first case for the orcas' right to be free under the 13th Amendment is one more step toward the inevitable day when all animals will be free from enslavement for human entertainment. Judge Miller's opinion does not change the fact that the orcas who once lived naturally, wild and free, are today kept as slaves by SeaWorld. PETA will continue to pursue every available avenue to fight for these animals.
As Harvard law professor and constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe described the unprecedented lawsuit, "Some may even be offended by the implied comparison of human slavery with the experience of non-humans who are captured in the wild and kept in conditions that are unnatural for the species. But that reaction would overlook both what we have in common with some other species and the many respects in which the Constitution is an essentially aspirational document. Its bold language and broadly expressed principles offer themselves to each generation as we struggle to define our national values in an ever-changing world. Ours is a vibrant Constitution, more than capable of warding off past evils while also speaking to circumstances in which we come to recognize that familiar principles apply in ways previously unforeseen. So it seems to me no abuse of the Constitution to invoke it on behalf of non-human animals cruelly confined for purposes of involuntary servitude."
Caption: Tilikum, pictured above, has a collapsed dorsal fin, which only occurs in captivity.milan.bores | cc by 2.0
You can make a difference right now by refusing to buy a ticket to SeaWorld and by talking to parents and grandparents about the miserable existence that animals who live and die in barren, cramped cement tanks endure.
Written by Jeff Mackey
The always remarkable Bob Barker has sent urgent letters to the major sponsors of the cruel Calgary Stampede encouraging them to take PETA's advice and end their support of the deadly event.
Bob leapt into action after The Price Is Right—the game show he hosted for 35 years—began giving away prize packages that contained trips to the Stampede and to SeaWorld. Shortly afterward, Bob contacted the program's producers to ask them to stop promoting cruel animal spectacles on the show.
Now Bob has gone the extra mile by writing to some of the main companies that sponsor the Stampede—including Bell Canada, General Motors of Canada Limited, and Anheuser-Busch International—detailing the kinds of animal suffering that their money will be funding and urging them to withdraw their financial backing from the event.
Rodeos are always catastrophic for animals, but the Calgary Stampede is among the worst since they allow the use of barbaric devices that are illegal in many other countries, including electric prods and bucking straps (which are tightened around the animals' groins) in order to irritate and enrage the animals.
During last year's stampede, one horse had to be euthanized after breaking a leg on the very first day, and the previous year's event cost six horses their lives. And that's on top of the excruciating injuries—including broken bones, punctured lungs, internal bleeding and bruising, and torn tendons, ligaments, and muscles—suffered by many of the surviving animals.
Calgary Reviews | cc by 2.0
As Bob tells the Stampede sponsors, "Surely no one would be cheering a nine-day display of violence if the terrified horses and calves were cats and dogs. I hope you will agree that no animal deserves to suffer like this in the name of a tradition that should have died out with the covered wagon's last ride."
Please join PETA and Bob Barker in telling the producer of The Price Is Right never again to offer trips to SeaWorld or the Calgary Stampede as prizes.
Written by PETA
It was a landmark day in the U.S. District Court in San Diego today. For the first time ever, a federal court is considering whether or not the 13th Amendment, which prohibits slavery, applies to five orcas—Tilikum, Katina, Kasatka, Ulises and Corky—who are now incarcerated at SeaWorld amusement parks. PETA, three marine-mammal experts, and two former SeaWorld trainers filed the suit in the orcas' behalf in October. SeaWorld filed a motion to dismiss the case—but that didn't happen today. Instead, Judge Jeffrey Miller said he will consider the case and will issue a ruling at a later date.
For a full hour, Judge Miller asked thoughtful questions of both sides and listened as Jeff Kerr, general counsel to PETA, spoke in behalf of the orca plaintiffs.
"It's a new frontier in civil rights," Kerr said in his summary of the case. Slavery does not depend on the species of the slave any more than it depends on race, gender, or ethnicity, he argued. "Coercion, degradation, and subjugation characterize slavery, and these orcas have endured all three."
We couldn't agree more.
In the aerial view of SeaWorld, one can see how little room orcas have. Inside the circle is Tilikum, whose nose and tail almost touch the ends of his tank. Image © 2011 Google
On the final day of SeaWorld's challenge to its citations imposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), questions abounded about the qualifications of Jeff Andrews, a 15-year SeaWorld veteran who now works at the San Diego Zoo and whom SeaWorld offered as a witness. Andrews was presented as an expert in animal behavior and training and in working safely with large animals. He testified that he primarily learned on the job at SeaWorld and last worked with orcas there in 2001.
When questioned about what he could offer that would differ from previous SeaWorld employees' testimony, Andrews responded only his "position in the park" and his post-SeaWorld experience. He stated that he stays informed of what happens at SeaWorld parks and is called if there is an injury at any of them. He also admitted that he relied entirely on Chuck Tompkins, SeaWorld's corporate curator for zoological operations, for the data and statistics on which he based his opinion.
After a day of direct and cross examination, during which Andrews repeatedly made "expert" statements that were based on others' opinions, his credibility was shredded. Even SeaWorld did not offer Andrews' report, which he had prepared for SeaWorld for the purpose of this hearing and which provided written proof of his flawed methodologies, into evidence.
When questioned about aggressive incidents documented in SeaWorld's monthly recaps, Andrews refused to acknowledge that splitting off routine and thrashing toward a trainer could indicate aggression in Tilikum, laughing at OSHA's attorney for suggesting the possibility and calling the assertion an "uneducated assessment of behavior." Despite using the term "aggressive" repeatedly in his direct testimony and his report, when asked how he defines the term, Andrews responded, "I don't have an operating definition of aggression off the top of my head."
Andrews dismissed the vast majority of behaviors listed as "aggressive tendencies" on Tilikum's behavioral profile, including "mouthing the stage, vocalizations, tightening body posture, banging gates" and "a deep fast swim." Andrews insisted that only lunging toward a trainer could potentially be considered aggressive.
Another notable thing revealed today was an admission by SeaWorld's vice president of veterinary services, Dr. Chris Dold, that about 14 of 20 orcas at SeaWorld have had their teeth drilled after breaking them from biting hard surfaces such as the concrete pools, themselves, and other orcas.
The parties will be submitting final briefs in the coming months, after which the judge will make his decision. But one thing became clear during nine days of testimony: Despite all the deaths, injuries, and other serious incidents that have occurred, SeaWorld employees continue to defend the practice of keeping orcas in tanks and forcing them to perform tricks for the public.
Written by Jennifer O'Connor
Returning to the stand on day eight of the hearings regarding SeaWorld's challenge to OSHA rulings against SeaWorld, the company's "curator of animal training," Kelly Flaherty Clark, became visibly angered when government attorney John Black implied that SeaWorld makes substantive changes to its protocols only for PR purposes—rather than to protect trainer safety.
Black pointed out the differences between the responses to the incidents involving Dawn Brancheau and John Sillick and the incident involving Alexis Martinez. The incidents involving Brancheau and Sillick, who was crushed in 1987 when an orca landed on him while the trainer was in the water, both occurred with the public present and resulted in significant media attention and some changes to trainer-orca interactions. In contrast, Martinez's death occurred during a training session in Tenerife, Spain, at the hideous Loro Parque marine park, out of public view, and garnered little media attention on an island where tourism is king and Loro Parque is the big revenue generator. After Martinez's death, trainers at SeaWorld Orlando were pulled from the water for only a single day, and no changes to any training or safety procedures were made.
Entered into evidence were SeaWorld's "monthly recaps," including 60 pages of documents about Tilikum that included the heading "Aggressive Incidents" and detailed an incident in which a trainer lost control of Tilikum during a show. Tilikum started swimming in circles, and when called back, he "thrashed" toward the trainer—which Flaherty Clark demonstrated by showing her teeth. Flaherty Clark dismissed the recaps as "irrelevant." To whom?
Flaherty Clark was also questioned about a 1997 incident at the now-defunct SeaWorld Ohio in which trainer Kristine Van Oss was pulled into the water by her sweatshirt. The resulting incident report stated: "We hope that you plan to eventually desensitize all killer whales to work with you regardless of what you're wearing. You can't guarantee hair, apparel, or objects will never be within reach, so it's better to address the problem." Tilikum pulled Dawn Brancheau into the tank by her ponytail.
Flaherty Clark confirmed that until Dawn Brancheau's death, every time trainers were pulled from the water following a serious incident, they were allowed back in. And every single time, another incident or injury occurred.
When asked how water work is educational for audiences, a claim that SeaWorld makes because an educational purpose is required for the company to retain its federal permits to hold orcas, Flaherty Clark could not provide any information. No surprise.
Stay tuned.
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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