Noah Cyrus to Push SeaWorld Execs to Release Corky the Orca to Sanctuary

For Immediate Release:
June 12, 2025

Contact:
Allyson Spellman 202-483-7382

Hot off her performance at the CMA Fest, singer Noah Cyrus will hold SeaWorld executives’ feet to the fire by submitting a question during the abusement park’s virtual annual meeting on Friday June 13th, demanding it release Corky, an orca who was abducted off the coast of British Columbia in 1969:

“My name is Noah Cyrus, and I have a question on behalf of PETA.

Following global outrage over Lolita’s death at the Miami Seaquarium, all eyes are on SeaWorld to do the right thing before another animal dies in a tank. Like Lolita, Corky was torn away from her family and ocean home and has only known misery for more than 50 years. She has had no life other than that spent swimming in endless circles in a concrete tank.

While the Seaquarium announced plans to retire Lolita to a seaside sanctuary, they came too late, and Lolita was denied even a moment of freedom. Now, people are looking to SeaWorld to do better for Corky. Experts are already working on a sanctuary in her home waters, where SeaWorld could continue to provide her care in a more natural, protected environment.

My question is this: Surely, you don’t want Corky to live out her final years without feeling the water’s currents again and being near her family. When will SeaWorld create a plan to move her to a seaside sanctuary?”

In nature, orcas have sophisticated social relationships, working cooperatively to find food and traveling vast distances in the open ocean every day—but at SeaWorld, they’re housed in cramped concrete tanks that leave them with nothing to do but float listlessly while enduring stress, frustration, and depression. Corky was used as a breeding machine at a now defunct marine park for years, but none of her calves survived more than 47 days. Her last pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, and her dead baby was found at the bottom of a concrete tank at SeaWorld.

Cyrus—who previously teamed up with PETA for a campaign urging people to boycott SeaWorld—is part of a long list of celebrities including Lala Kent, Nikki Glaser, Joan Jett, P!nk, Bella Thorne, and Steve Aoki who have teamed up with PETA to speak out against cruel marine parks.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.