SeaQuest’s Successor Wins Cold-Hearted Company Award from PETA

For Immediate Release:
June 18, 2025

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Summer may be heating up, but One World Interactive Aquarium—formerly SeaQuest Las Vegas—has just received PETA’s Cold-Hearted Company Award for continuing SeaQuest’s miserable legacy of suffering and exploitation by refusing to improve conditions for the animals in the company’s clutches.

At One World Interactive Aquarium, multiple naturally social parrots are forced to live in solitary confinement. Three macaws—Indigo, Marge, and Scarlet—have been seen with areas of feather loss—a sign of health issues or stress—or exhibiting abnormal behaviors, such as swaying and repetitively bobbing their heads. One large python is confined to a cramped tank that’s not even long enough to allow the animal to fully stretch out, which experts agree is essential to their health and well-being, while an emerald tree monitor was recently seen pacing back and forth against their glass enclosure, indicating psychological distress.

“It takes a cold heart to treat feeling, thinking wild animals as disposable props, and One World Interactive Aquarium is carrying on SeaQuest’s bad business practices,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA urges families hoping to make happy summer memories to steer clear of this vile place and opt for animal-free entertainment instead.”

In nature, birds fly long distances and engage in complex social interactions within their flocks; emerald tree monitors live in tight-knit groups and use their prehensile tails to move through the trees of tropical forests; and stingrays enjoy foraging for food and burying themselves in the sand. But at One World Interactive Aquarium, these and other animals are confined indoors and subjected to loud noises and constant human touch, causing them acute and chronic stress.

SeaQuest aquariums had long been plagued by animal welfare issues, animal deaths, legal violations, and injuries to employees and the public from direct contact with animals. In just six years, SeaQuest racked up over 130 U.S. Department of Agriculture citations for failing to meet the requirements of the federal Animal Welfare Act.

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