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 Woodbridge Aquarium & Wildlife—formerly SeaQuest Woodbridge—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.
Woodbridge Aquarium & Wildlife has already been cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for illegally exhibiting animals without a license and for a child being bitten by a rabbit. At the aquarium, large freshwater fish have been crowded into tanks where the water quality was so poor that the fish were lethargic and barely moving, and nurse sharks and moray eels are forced to live in a tiny tank where they can do nothing but swim in circles with no way to escape each other. Two goats and a pig named George are forced to live in cramped pens inside the shopping mall with no access to fresh air or sunshine and no space to roam.
“It takes a cold heart to treat feeling, thinking wild animals as disposable props, and Woodbridge 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; nurse sharks are known to huddle together in huge piles; and stingrays enjoy foraging for food and burying themselves in the sand. But at Woodbridge Aquarium & Wildlife, 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 USDA citations for failing to meet the bare minimum required under 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.
