Empty the Tanks! ‘Orca’ to Lead Student Protest at SeaWorld in San Diego

For Immediate Release:
March 26, 2021

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Led by a costumed orca, members of Students Opposing Speciesism (SOS)—a PETA-backed, youth-led revolt against the archaic notion that humans are superior to other animals and can exploit them for human amusement—will gather outside SeaWorld on Saturday to demand that the company end its sordid breeding programs and send the dolphins and whales it uses to seaside sanctuaries. The protest is part of a nationwide “day of action” that also includes SOS protests in Orlando, Florida, and San Antonio.

When:    Saturday, March 27, 12 noon

Where:    Near the intersection of Sea World Drive and Sea World Way, San Diego

“Students have spent a year in lockdown, thanks to COVID-19, but they’re objecting to SeaWorld’s practice of confining orcas to small concrete cells for their entire lives,” says PETA Director Rachelle Owen. “The students are demanding that these animals be given some semblance of a natural life and be allowed to dive deep and communicate with others of their kind in a seaside sanctuary.”

The Los Angeles–based SOS hub—which previously campaigned against cruel experiments at the National Institutes of Health and against the use of animals for clothing at Urban Outfitters—is now turning its eyes on SeaWorld, calling on the company to stop forcibly breeding bottlenose dolphins and whales and to release all the marine mammals at its parks to seaside sanctuaries. At SeaWorld, these animals are confined to small concrete pools in which they often fight with incompatible tankmates, swim in endless circles, and wear away their teeth by gnawing on the sides and metal gates of the tanks.

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 SeaWorldOfHurt.com or follow PETA on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.