Gwersyllt Primary School Pupils Win PETA Award for Speaking Up for Orcas

Gwersyllt Primary School Pupils Win PETA Award for Speaking Up for Orcas

Wrexham – A Compassionate Action Award from PETA has been given to Gwersyllt CP’s Dosbarth 3 students in recognition of their heartfelt, persuasive letters to the travel association ABTA urging the group to cut ties with exploitative marine parks such as SeaWorld.

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The students all had pointed remarks for the British travel trade association. “Are we just supposed to sit back and watch as orcas slowly die for our entertainment?” asked young Elizah. “The reason why they live less in captivity is because of their injuries and sometimes they try to really badly injure themselves because they hate the place so much,” observed Naomi. “You would not keep a child or any human in a tank and take them away from their family would you?” asked Lucas.

“These 9- and 10-year-olds showed more insight and empathy for the suffering cetaceans in marine parks than the adults running ABTA have,” says PETA Corporate Projects Manager Dr Carys Bennett. “PETA calls on ABTA to heed these kids’ pleas and discourage its members from promoting marine-mammal parks.”

PETA is calling on ABTA to update its Animal Welfare Guidelines to add promoting facilities that exploit dolphins and whales to its “unacceptable practices” list. Travel giants like Tripadvisor, Expedia, Virgin Holidays, and British Airways Holidays have refused to promote facilities that use captive whales and dolphins for entertainment. Yet ABTA’s inaction on this front allows members such as TUI to profit from animals’ suffering by selling tickets to venues that imprison these sensitive, intelligent beings in cramped concrete tanks.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” – notes that orcas and bottlenose dolphins in marine parks are commonly confined to cramped concrete tanks for decades. With little physical or  psychological stimulation, they spend their days swimming in endless circles, floating listlessly, or gnawing at their prison walls. The group opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow the group on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]

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