Looming SeaQuest Application Sparks Protest
Animal Rights Proponents Will Urge Oyster Bay to Block Aquarium’s Bid to Set Up Shop
For Immediate Release:
March 25, 2019
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
On Tuesday, members of Long Island Orchestrating for Nature (LION) and PETA will descend on Oyster Bay’s town hall to urge officials to deny the permit application submitted in October for a SeaQuest aquarium to be opened inside the Westfield Sunrise mall. Protesters will screen recent news coverage from around the country documenting SeaQuest’s abuse of animals and its spate of animal-welfare violations on a 50-inch screen outside the Town Board meeting.
When: Tuesday, March 26, 6 p.m.
Where: 54 Audrey Ave. (at the intersection with Spring Street), Oyster Bay
“SeaQuest has left a trail of animal suffering and death wherever it has opened its doors,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is urging the kind people of Oyster Bay to tell this horrific animal prison to take a hike.”
Numerous former SeaQuest staffers have come forward with allegations of appalling neglect and abuse. Former employees at SeaQuest’s Las Vegas location have alleged that birds were stepped on and killed, turtles were crushed by children, and an octopus died after being boiled alive in a tank. One former staffer even claimed that he saw hundreds of animals die. Just last month, the same location was reportedly cited and fined $2,000 for unlawfully breeding otters.
Humans aren’t safe at SeaQuest, either. At the aquarium’s Littleton, Colorado, location, at least 41 people have been injured by animals, and the Las Vegas location is reportedly the subject of an open investigation into claims that two employees were bitten by a coatimundi.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, which is the human-supremacist viewpoint that other species are ours to breed, display, and sell for profit or amusement. The group’s efforts to keep SeaQuest out of Oyster Bay include rallying support from members of the public and from actor and Massapequa native Alec Baldwin as well as protesting outside the Westfield Sunrise mall.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.
