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:

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.

It must've been a terribly hard decision—whether to use 2.3 billion yen ($29 million) from Japan's tsunami reconstruction budget for, you know, tsunami reconstruction or to put it toward propping up the country's barbaric and widely condemned whale slaughter …. Well played flayed, Japan.

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

This whale of a tale is true: Dolphin activist Hayden Panettiere traveled to the White House to thank President Obama for asking Iceland to ban hunting whales and exporting their meat. Fellow ocean-animal advocates Richard Branson and basketball legend Yao Ming are calling for a ban on shark-fin soup in China, where 95 percent of the cruel fare is served.

Yao Ming isn't the only athlete taking action for animals. After being vegetarian for four years, Toronto Maple Leaf Mike Zigomanis has gone vegan as part of his effort to become healthier, stronger, and a better player.

Congratulations to glowing vegan mom Emily Deschanel, who gave birth last week to her first child, son Henry Hornsby. A rockin' congrats also goes out to the inimitable Joan Jett for her well-deserved Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nomination. She loves rock and roll … as well as chickens, cows, seals, pigs, elephants, and rabbits.

Another award we couldn't help but crack a smile about—furry Kim Kardashian was voted the most annoying celebrity. Maybe kind sis Khloe can teach her how to be more popular.

Speaking of popular­­—Ellen DeGeneres, Bill Maher, and other celebs helped make PETA's White House spay-and-neuter petition one of the first to reach 5,000 signatures and go to the president for review by tweeting about the dog and cat homelessness crisis. You can join Ellen, Bill, and many others in sending a strong message about the importance of spaying and neutering by signing the petition too.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

© Carla Wilson

 
PETA supporters in Orlando, Florida, spent the Fourth of July weekend declaring independence for whales and dolphins held captive at SeaWorld. Here are the top five reasons that freedom should include marine animals.

1. Twenty-four dead orcas – and counting. Of the 24 orcas who have died at SeaWorld since 1986, not one died of old age. Many of their deaths were caused by captivity-induced illnesses.  
2. Life in a bathtub drains marine mammals' spirits. Forcing animals who naturally travel up to 100 miles a day in the open ocean to swim in continuous circles in tiny, barren concrete tanks causes stress-related behaviors, including suicide.
3. SeaWorld tears families apart. In the wild, dolphins spend their entire lives in a pod with their mothers and sisters. Capturing even one dolphin disrupts the entire pod. Dolphins born in captivity are often taken away from their loved ones and shipped to other facilities.
4. Frustrated animals are dangerous to people. Aside from the trainers killed by angry captive whales, the USDA has cited SeaWorld for several instances in which dolphins injured people in its swim-with-the-dolphins program.
5. If you don't support the jailing of innocent people, you shouldn't support SeaWorld. Scientists at Emory University mapped the brains of dolphins and concluded that they are second only to humans in intelligence. Captivity is as hard on these sensitive animals as it is on people, but the dolphins are being punished without having committed a crime.

You can help by writing to SeaWorld and asking the company to let its prisoners go free—to transitional coastal and wildlife sanctuaries.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

eschipul / CC by 2.0

It takes a big man to admit he's made a mistake, and they don't come any bigger, at least in the travel world, than Arthur Frommer. In a blog post earlier this month, Frommer expressed regret for the times that he recommended SeaWorld in his popular travel guides:

Click here to read the letter that had such an impact on Frommer. And after you've visited his Web site to share some love, send an e-mail to SeaWorld and ask its officials if they're big enough to admit that they were wrong too.

Written by Alisa Mullins

hisgett / CC by 2.0

Thanks to the efforts of compassionate people like Keely and Pierce Brosnan—and the many PETA Files readers who voiced their concerns (We love you guys!)—an attempt to end the moratorium on commercial whaling was defeated during the meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Morocco. This move is all the more impressive in the wake of news reports detailing the desperate attempts of Japanese representatives to manipulate the outcome, from applying backroom pressure to paying poor countries to vote on their side!

While this is good news, it's not yet time to pop those champagne corks. Whales still face huge threats, from spewing oil (and oil development) to miserable lives in captivity to—as any fan of Whale Wars knows—killer nations that subvert (or just ignore) the international ban on whaling. So while we have momentum on our side, let's keep the efforts going until all whales are free to live their natural lives! Thank you for your role in all this.

Written by Jeff Mackey

Could the Brosnans be any kinder? First, Pierce helped homeless animals by designing a spay-and-neuter license plate, and now Pierce and his wife, Keely, are leading a truly vigorous international effort to make sure that the worldwide ban on whaling—which is now in jeopardy—remains intact. The ban has been in effect since 1986, but the International Whaling Commission (IWC) is considering lifting it if the three countries (Japan, Iceland, and Norway) that are currently ignoring the ban will reduce the number of whales they kill each year. In short, the IWC is proposing to reward these countries for their continued whaling during the international moratorium.

In the weeks leading up to the IWC's vote on this issue, more than 144 scientists and experts have signed a petition urging the IWC to keep the ban on whaling. Pierce has also made this heartfelt plea to the Obama administration not to support a proposed plan that would allow Japan, Iceland, and Norway to continue killing whales while the moratorium is in place: Please, listen and act: The time is now!

Join Pierce, Keely, and other compassionate people who are working to save whales by urging President Obama to take a strong stand against the slaughter of these animals. Call and fax, and get everyone you know to do the same—this minute. If we can't save the whales, what hope is there for other animals?

Written by Lindsay Pollard-Post

BP has more than the loss of human life, livelihoods and tourism to answer for. And so do the government inspectors who allowed this corporation—as seemingly greedy as the bankers, mining companies and marine park owners whose careless conduct has resulted in similar destruction—to put profit over safety.

If the criminal investigation of BP and those who signed off on the drill-site inspection sheets and safety assurances shows willful fraud and deception, dereliction of duty, bribes or who knows what else, there is one additional set of criminal charges that should be added to the list: cruelty to animals. For this is the largest case of cruelty to animals in U.S. history.

We are being spared, for political reasons, some think, but mercifully perhaps, most of the photographs of the animals who have died and are still dying, slowly, painfully, not just coated but drenched in oil. It is hard for anyone with a heart to see the gulls and pelicans, blinking up through a thick coat of muck that prevents them from flying, eating, taking a drink of water and escaping the burning heat of June. It is even too much to come across a snippet of video that shows a huge rubber-gloved hand gently plucking a tiny crab out of a puddle of black glop. Only the outline of his body tells you what he is, although his struggles tell you that he is still alive. For the moment.

For most of the animals, any help is too late. Studies show that even if wildlife rescuers capture an oiled bird in time, before much damage has been done, the terror of being handled by a predator, of being force-fed, doused and scrubbed, is too much for their pounding hearts to endure. Even if they survive the trauma of being cleaned and re-cleaned, it is suspected that most die after their release.

And in this case, one must ask, "Where can they be released?" Many birds mate for life; others are lost without their flocks. Their nesting grounds now lie under the oil slick; their friends and family are dead or dying. What is there for them to return to?

And what of the turtles, dolphins and—dare I write it—the whales? Cetacean experts do not expect whales to escape this slick completely. Once killed for their own oil, will they now be killed by ours?

And don't laugh, but what of the fish? As inconvenient as it may be to think about it, given the seafood buffets of summer, studies show that fish feel pain and fear just as acutely as mammals do.

Whether or not BP is charged with cruelty, there are many things that we can and should do other than just pointing a finger. Some suggestions are to provide less support to oil companies by consuming less oil, by buying fewer oil-based plastic goods (the beaches of Hawaiian atolls are inches deep in discarded plastic) and by following the recommendations issued by the United Nations this month and going vegan in order to save the waterways, forests and ozone layer. Paul McCartney's "Meat-Free Monday" project is getting institutions and individuals to look at the environmental devastation caused by energy-intensive factory farming and to do something about it by reducing meat consumption. In taking responsibility, President Obama would do well to announce that he, too, is embracing at least that one baby step.

Those responsible in the corporate world and in government can never truly make amends. How do you "make it up" to those who are suffering and dying in agony out there at this very moment or to those who have already lost their lives or loved ones? However, before looking away from the umpteenth heart-wrenching photo of an oil-coated pelican, the rest of us can do something positive and make some personal choices ourselves so that none of the oil companies will be able to claim consumer demand as a reason for misbehaving. It's just a thought.

Written by Ingrid E. Newkirk

Ladies and gentlemen, in this corner—fighting for animals—we have Strikeforce mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter and pro boxer KJ Noons.

Mixed martial arts junkies (it's so addictive!) know that the MMA world champion never backs down from a good fight, and now KJ's taking on his meanest opponents yet—animal abusers.

KJ is a hell of a fighter (he's one of the top lightweights in the world), but he can't beat animal abuse all by himself. He's calling on you to help K.O. violence against animals. If you think that an animal is being abused or neglected, report it immediately. Want to hear more about what KJ has to say on the subject? You're in luck, because the busy brawler, who will fight live on Showtime on June 16, gave us this exclusive interview and was even kind enough to autograph some swag for us to give away.

Written by Amy Skylark Elizabeth