PETA's 'Whales and Dolphins Want Out' Billboard Surface in San Antonio

Group Asks Everyone Who Cares About Animals to Avoid SeaWorld and Other Captive-Animal Amusement Parks

For Immediate Release:
May 3, 2010

Contact:
Amanda Fortino 757-622-7382

San Antonio -- Motorists traveling northbound along the east side of Loop 410 are getting a message that could end up affecting businesses that confine marine animals to tanks that--to the animals--are like bathtubs. That's because a new PETA billboard, which features a photo of an orca and reads, "Whales & Dolphins Want Out. Don't Support Captive Animal Shows," has just gone up near SeaWorld. PETA is one of many animal-protection groups that are pointing out that animals who are used in exhibits and shows at captive-animal parks such as SeaWorld suffer greatly from being deprived of freedom, family, and everything else that is natural and important to them. PETA's billboard serves to remind the public that it can help these animals simply by steering clear of captive-animal parks. The billboard is located along the east side of Loop 410 (facing south), north of Old Pearsall Road. It will remain up through the end of May.

"Marine mammals at SeaWorld have nothing to do but swim endlessly between bare walls and are forced to perform silly, unnatural tricks," says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. "We're asking San Antonio residents and visitors to seek out animal-friendly entertainment rather than giving their money to amusement parks that imprison wild animals and risk the lives of their employees."

PETA points out that the trainer who was killed by an orca at SeaWorld in Orlando last February would be alive today if SeaWorld had heeded PETA's advice to transfer all its dolphins--including orcas--to transitional coastal sanctuaries. The trainer was not the first person to be attacked and killed by a "killer whale" at SeaWorld, and PETA believes that she won't be the last. PETA is concerned that animals at SeaWorld remain frustrated and enraged by their cruel confinement and their inability to hunt, swim, and live in the ocean with their natural family pods.

In the wild, orcas share intricate relationships and swim as far as 100 miles every day. At SeaWorld, orcas continually turn in circles in small, concrete tanks and live far short of their 60-year life expectancy. In fact, 21 orcas died in U.S. SeaWorld facilities between 1986 and 2008--and not one died of old age.
 
For more information, please visit PETA's blog.