‘Crying Dolphin’ to Protest SeaWorld Reopening

PETA Will Call On Abusement Park to Stop Breeding Whales and Dolphins for Lifetimes of Lockdown in Tiny Tanks

For Immediate Release:
June 18, 2020

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Holding a sign proclaiming, “Locked Down for Life,” a “crying dolphin” will lead PETA supporters—all wearing masks and practicing social distancing—in a protest outside SeaWorld for the abusement park’s reopening on Friday. A second protest is set to follow the next morning.

When:    Friday, June 19, at 3 p.m. and Saturday, June 20, at 10 a.m.

Where:    10500 Sea World Dr. (at the intersection of Westover Hills Boulevard and N. Ellison Drive), San Antonio

The protests come just one week after PETA launched a new campaign at SeaWorld’s annual meeting calling for an end to the breeding of whales and dolphins, some of whom are dragged out of the water and forcibly impregnated after being drugged so that they can’t fight back. Some female animals endure this process repeatedly, only to have their babies die or be shipped to other SeaWorld parks.

“It’s indefensible for SeaWorld to use sensitive, intelligent, far-ranging belugas and dolphins as breeding machines so that it can make a buck,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on SeaWorld to stop creating generation after generation of captive marine mammals and start moving them to seaside sanctuaries.”

Following PETA’s previous campaign, SeaWorld agreed in February to stop allowing trainers to stand on dolphins’ faces and ride on their backs in cruel circus-style shows. PETA recently offered the park $250,000 toward building a seaside sanctuary—if it agreed to release the whales, orcas, and other dolphins in its custody.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.