Such campaigns could last 20 years, he said.
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U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California who had introduced legislation seeking to phase out the breeding and captivity of orcas, praised SeaWorld’s decision. After switching CEOs, they announced that they would be halting their orca shows in San Diego (not San Antonio or Orlando) in favor of less staged encounters. The change will start in San Diego next year, followed by San Antonio and Orlando in 2019. “The company will end all orca breeding as of today”.
The director says keeping marine mammals captive has always been about money, not education.
Bringing the whales close made people love them.
O’Barry once trained dolphins for the television series “Flipper” before advocating for their freedom.
PETA, which has been especially critical of SeaWorld, said the company needs to do more for the animals.
Park attendance dropped after the release of Blackfish in 2013 and SeaWorld reported a fourth-quarter loss of $11 million in February.
The company plans to change the way the public views their killer whales.
Also big news: SeaWorld was the good guy all along, according to SeaWorld president and CEO Joel Manby.
Tilikum was taken from the wild when he was only three years old and has been used to breed more orcas for SeaWorld.
The Huffington Post has reached out to a representative for Cowperthwaite and will update this post accordingly. “And we must remember the other animals who will remain in captivity until SeaWorld does right by all of them”, PETA said in a statement. SeaWorld said it’s replacing its traditional orca shows with shows that highlight the orcas’ natural behaviors in the wild. Manby said the parks will use birth control to halt reproduction among its killer whales, also known as orcas.
SeaWorld is a member of the Virginia-based organization.
In recent years, more and more people began to speak out about what SeaWorld’s like on the inside – and they sure did have some stories to tell.
At one point, the HSUS President and CEO Wayne Pacelle publicly promoted the the release of a book about the death of a trainer during one of its Shamu shows.
Manby announced that the park will not release the orcas into the wild for their own protection citing that the orcas have lived most of their lives in captivity, or were born at SeaWorld.
(Corrects name of Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums).
SeaWorld will stop its orca breeding program and will soon stop live performance shows where the animals leap and do tricks for audiences, the company said in a surprise statement Thursday. Now we need to respond to the attitudinal change that we helped to create – which is why SeaWorld is announcing several historic changes.
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SeaWorld also said it would partner with the Humane Society of the United States and had set aside $50 million to push for an end to commercial whaling and seal hunting as well as the killing of sharks for their fins over the next five years.
