New Shareholder Resolution Could Save SeaWorld’s Sinking Ship

PETA Says There’s One Way to Save the Company: Ban Orca Breeding, Retire the Animals to Coastal Sanctuaries, and Reinvent the Park

For Immediate Release:
December 16, 2015

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

How can SeaWorld recoup its drops in attendance, revenue, net income, and stock value? PETA—which owns stock in the company—has the answer, and in a shareholder resolution submitted today, the group is taking it to the park’s shareholders: Ban captive-orca breeding and develop coastal sanctuaries where the animals would be retired, then go with human and high-tech entertainment.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—points out that the public is more aware than ever that orcas suffer physically and psychologically in captivity, especially when kept in tiny concrete tanks. SeaWorld has been found to drug them and group them incompatibly, and they gnaw at the underwater steel bars until their teeth break. Coastal sanctuaries would provide animals with a dynamic, stimulating environment, and SeaWorld could attract audiences with state-of-the-art augmented or virtual reality marine-mammal experiences that would allow visitors to learn about and interact with wildlife in a safe, humane way.

“The public doesn’t want to see sad, deprived orcas trapped in SeaWorld’s concrete and chlorine prisons, deprived of any kind of real life,” says PETA Foundation Director of Animal Law Jared Goodman. “PETA’s shareholder resolution calls on SeaWorld to face the inevitable and move now toward the future by ending its orca-breeding program and developing costal sanctuaries and immersive virtual-reality displays.”

In the past year, the California Coastal Commission ruled that plans for new orca tanks in San Diego could move forward only under the condition that SeaWorld end its captive-breeding program there. U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff also introduced the Orca Responsibility and Care Advancement Act, which would ban the breeding of orcas held for exhibition and prohibit the capture and import or export of orcas for public display.

PETA’s shareholder resolution is available upon request. For more information, please visit SeaWorldOfHurt.com.