Breaking: PETA ‘Orcas’ Make a Splash at TUI’s Bournemouth Store
22 August 2024
Breaking: PETA ‘Orcas’ Make a Splash at TUI’s Bournemouth Store
Bournemouth – Today, four PETA “orcas” wearing chains burst into TUI’s Bournemouth branch – one of the UK’s newest stores, which has reportedly seen footfall “soar” – and took over the store windows holding signs reading, “Help Me!” and “Free Me!” Two other PETA supporters held a banner that read, “Orca Suffering for Sale Here!” at the entrance to the store. This is PETA’s latest action to urge the travel provider to sever its ties with marine abusement parks that hold orcas and other dolphins captive in the name of entertainment.
Photos and video footage are available here and here.
PETA notes that while orcas in nature form complex relationships, work cooperatively to find food, and traverse up to 150 miles of ocean every day, those at marine parks are housed in incompatible groups in cramped tanks. Held in these concrete prisons for decades and forced to perform tricks for tourists, the majority die far short of their natural life expectancy.
Most leading travel companies, including rival Jet2holidays, have ended the promotion of dolphin prisons. TUI’s propping up of the notorious SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida, and promotion of other abusement parks like Loro Parque in Tenerife, Spain, is an embarrassment to the entire travel industry.
“By putting profit ahead of the pain, suffering, and premature death of orcas, other dolphins, and whales, TUI is alienating caring British holidaymakers and compassionate travellers everywhere,” says PETA Senior Campaigns Manager Kate Werner. “TUI must stop selling tickets to these watery prisons if it hopes to remain viable.”
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment or abuse in any other way” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow the group on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.
Contact:
Lucy Watson +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]
#