PETA: Let Whales, Dolphins "Out of Prison"

(CBS)  A controversial animal rights group is ramping up protests against SeaWorld following the recent death of a whale trainer, saying that the whale lashed out due to its inhumane confinement.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals protesters rallied outside of a SeaWorld location in San Antonio, Tex., Saturday and hired a small plane to fly a banner overhead that read "SeaWorld: Let Whales and Dolphins Out of Prison."

The group is planning to repeat the protests Tuesday at the SeaWorld in Orlando, Fla., where orca trainer Dawn Brancheau was killed last month. A 12,000-pound killer whale called Tilikum attacked her after a show.

Listen to the 911 calls

"PETA points out that the trainer who was killed by an orca on February 24 would be alive today if SeaWorld had heeded PETA's advice to transfer all its dolphins - including orcas - to transitional coastal sanctuaries and stop confining oceangoing mammals to small enclosures that to them are like bathtubs," the group said in a press release.

"The trainer was not the first person to be attacked and killed by a killer whale at SeaWorld, and PETA believes that she won't be the last. PETA is concerned that animals at SeaWorld remain frustrated and enraged by their cruel confinement and their inability to hunt, swim, and live in the oceans with natural family pods."

More coverage of the SeaWorld tragedy

Worker: "Whale Would Not Let Us Have Her"
SeaWorld Trainer Mourned in Chicago
Whale Attack Renews Captive Animal Debate
Tears Flow as Whale Shows Resume
SeaWorld Called Best Place for Tilikum
Whale, Trainer Play on Film Before Attack
SeaWorld Defends Serial Killer Whale
SeaWorld: The Show Must Go On
Ex-SeaWorld Official: Trainer Made Mistake
Dawn Brancheau's Last Moments Alive
SeaWorld Trainer Embraced Risks of Job

[hudson248]

I'm not sure I understadnd what the big deal is. If you are against Sea World and what they do then just don't go there. It isn't a requirement, it isn't necessary to life so just don't go.

Leave the people alone who aren't narrow minded, are logical and can see more than just what's in front of them.

[JohnBoston07]

HMMMmmmmm..... while the plane was flying around, SeaWorld was saving a Manatee. Isn't that all warm n fuzzy! And just how much money 'ya figure SeaWorld was spending at that exact moment working on their latest spin to protect shareholders? HHhmmmm.... now doesn't that make you feel all warm n fuzzy?! PS- PETA is a bunch of whackjobs, and although SeaWorlds' staff does some admirable things, SW's execs ain't far behind (they just hide it better).

[hudson248]

I think PETA is more interested in PR and is exploiting animals as a way to get it...not to mention exploiting the trainers family and their grief. Just think of all the animals they could have saved with the money they wasted on the stupid airplane stunt....which honestly was a waste because if you were in the Seaworld park you obvioulsy don't agree with what PETA is wanting everybody to believe.

[hudson248]

I wonder how much PETA wasted on that stunt. I find it odd that an organization who claimes to be doing all this does if for the love of animals...but yet spends a lot of valuable resources (that could be spend on said animals) on stupid stunts. Just think about all the animal shelters they could have given that money and saved so many lives. I am begining to think PETA loves PR and is exploiting animals to get it.

[mldecker]

The Cove is intentionally misleading. There is not one dolphin from the Japan slaughter in any marine park in the western hemisphere. The slaughter should stop, but the agenda of Obarry is to close US marine parks, not stop the slaughter. He has hijacked the issue...

By the way, PETA are RADICALS, they don't even want you to have goldfish. They believe animals are better off dead than in any form of captivity. Think for a moment about all public service animals, rescue animals, etc. Leather belts, shoes...food. What happens when we listen to PETA? They prefer a world without humans.

[mldecker]

"The Cove" viewers - the dolphin slaughter in Japan is horrific, doubtful anyone would dissagree with that...but there is not one single dolphin from the Japan drive fishery in any marine park in the western hemisphere. Obarry has fraudulently represented that parks in the US contribute to this slaughter. The Japan drive fishery predates the zoo industry by over 300 years...

Yes, let's agree to stop the killing of those dolphins...but recognize that Obarry has hijacked the issue to attack US marine parks when there is no correlation. Obarry was fired from Miami Seaquarium in the 1960's for drug use, he's become a professional disgruntled employee. This doesn't mean the cause is not just, but it's a shame that the message has been distorted. Activits like Obarry are not immune to corruption.

[olskooltoo]

how about we put PETA in the tanks

[Clemsson]

Note to PeTA and animal "rights" zealots: The whales will die if released. They learn survival skills. They don't have them. Setting them "free" is a death sentence. The "Free Willy" campaign turned out being a "Kill Willy" campaign.

Get your head out of the clouds and recognize reality.

These animals should not be captured in the FIRST PLACE. But once they are, it is not possible to return them. Especially dolphins, which would otherwise have the intelligence to learn survival skills on their own. Unfortunately, other dolphins would kill them quickly. Yes, dolphins are prodigious killers of other lone dolphins. They aren't the cuddly smiling fishies you leftards imagine. Idiots. Morons. Freaking dunces.

[kyleminli]

"These animals should not be captured in the FIRST PLACE." You make a good point, Clemsson. Run with it! In other words, the extension of your argument would be that the capture of whales and dolphins for show should end. I agree with you. Here's a video that has everything to do with the capture--not release--of animals for show:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTQyODMyMDg4.html

But beware, the last sixth of the clip is a bloodbath brought to you by SeaWorld and other aquariums that house whales/dolphins. I would say that with your perspective on the issue, you could lead us to create a new organization: People for the Ethical Treatment of People & Animals (PETPA). In other words, it's not all or nothing--all animals, no people. We can look for comprehensive solutions that work for people and animals. I think you might agree that common ground is possible.

Anyway, there are many people out here of various political perspectives who think that solutions are not just single-party outcomes. Who toes the party line these days, anyway? For example, you can be against abortion and also be against the destruction of animals across God's green earth. It's a false dichotomy to say that you must pick between the two positions. In other words, they are not opposites, though the American political spectrum tends to treat them as such. Time to break free of the lockstep political frames that bind you, Clemsson. Those frames only lead you to write sentences containing zingers, as opposed to possible solutions to very real problems in this world.

[newsterl]

(CBS) A controversial animal rights group is ramping up protests against.."

WHo cares what these hypocrits do! their own employees were CAUGHT red handed just a couple or three years ago obtaining dogs, telling the owners they would find home for them, and within hours they were KILLED in the official PeTA van by two idiots with no licenses to administer prescription narcotics, and no permits to dispense them petakillsanimals.com

PETA?s ?Animal Record? report for 2009, filed with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, shows that the animal rights group killed 97 percent of the dogs and cats in its care last year. During all of 2009, PETA found adoptive homes for just eight pets.

Just eight animals -- out of the 2,366 it took in. PETA just broke its own record.

PETA has a $33 million annual budget. But instead of investing in the lives of the thousands of flesh and blood creatures in its care, the group spends millions on media campaigns telling Americans that eating meat, drinking milk, fishing, hunting, wearing leather shoes, and benefiting from medical research performed on lab rats are all ?unethical.?

The bottom line: PETA?s leaders care more about cutting into their advertising budget than finding homes for the six pets they kill on average, every single day.

All About the PETA Trial
The North Carolina animal-cruelty trial of two PETA employees ended with a surprising result, but the animal rights group admitted under oath that it does, indeed, kill large numbers of animals. Our daily reports from inside the courtroom provide a rare look at one of the radical organization's most secret programs.

January 26, 2007 | Shortly after 4:00 on Day 5, District Attorney Valerie Asbell told the team of defense lawyers arrayed against her that just four more prosecution witnesses will testify against People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) employees Adria Hinkle and Andrew Cook.

[newsterl]

PETA has given tens of thousands of dollars to convicted arsonists and other violent criminals. This includes a 2001 donation of $1,500 to the North American Earth Liberation Front (ELF), an FBI-certified ?domestic terrorist? group responsible for dozens of firebombs and death threats. During the 1990s, PETA paid $70,200 to Rodney Coronado, an Animal Liberation Front (ALF) serial arsonist convicted of burning down a Michigan State University research laboratory. In his sentencing memorandum, a federal prosecutor implicated PETA president Ingrid Newkirk in that crime. PETA vegetarian campaign coordinator Bruce Friedrich has also told an animal rights convention that ?blowing stuff up and smashing windows? is ?a great way to bring about animal liberation,? adding, ?Hallelujah to the people who are willing to do it.?

PETA?s president has said that ?even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we would be against it.? And PETA has repeatedly attacked research foundations like the March of Dimes, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and the American Cancer Society, solely because they support animal-based research aimed at curing life-threatening diseases and birth defects. And PETA helped to start and manage a quasi-medical front group, the misnamed Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, to attack medical research head-on.

According to government documents, PETA employees have killed more than 19,200 dogs, cats, puppies, and kittens since 1998. This behavior continues despite PETA?s moralizing about the ?unethical? treatment of animals by farmers, scientists, restaurant owners, circuses, hunters, fishermen, zookeepers, and countless other Americans. PETA puts to death over 90 percent of the animals it accepts from members of the public who expect the group to make a reasonable attempt to find them adoptive homes. PETA holds absolutely no open-adoption shelter hours at its Norfolk, VA headquarters, choosing instead to spend part of its $32 million annual income on a contract with a crematory service to periodically empty hundreds of animal bodies from its large walk-in freezer.

[carolcape]

Those whales and dolphins should be definitely set free. This is just a money making business keeping these animals captive. I didn't hear too much sorrow about the trainer when she was killed. It was, oh, it was because she had a ponytail. Well get real, when people start making stupid statements like the whale didn't like her hairdo or thought she was a toy, what in the hell would she be in there with the whale for. If this whale has killed to other people, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that this is why he is called a "killer whale". Never should this whale have been close to any other person, especially after the first death. Oh yes, these oceanographer scientist know what the whale is thinking, for the love of God, you don't know what you're wife is thinking. So how in the hell do you know what a whale is thinking. These people are morons and the people who soak this up are morons as well. Let these animals go back to the ocean where they belong. And stop the millions of dollars you are making on these shows.