SeaWorld’s days of intermittently torturing, drugging and masturbating a pod of interbred orca whales may soon be coming to an end.
This week, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) announced that he will introduce the Orca Responsibility and Care Advancement (ORCA) Act, a bill that would “phase out the captivity of orcas so that their display ends with this generation.” The legislation would outlaw breeding, capturing, importing orca whales for the purpose of public exhibition in the U.S. Essentially it’d be the nail in SeaWorld’s Shamu-sized coffin.
Naomi Rose, a marine mammal scientist who’s been one of the loudest voices against SeaWorld, acknowledged that the bill’s chances of success “are not fantastically high,” but that it does have bipartisan support.
“Regardless, it sends a strong message, to the public display industry and the states with captive orcas, that this is a public interest matter, solidly in the mainstream,” she said in an email.
This isn’t the first bill of its kind — others like it have been proposed in the past, and several states and countries have laws that either ban or tightly regulate orca captivity. And last month, the California Coastal Commission ruled that the company could only carry out its planned expansion if stopped breeding orca whales.
I remember going to SeaWorld when I was 12 and it was so much fun, we never thought for a second that there was anything wrong with it. I don't remember any controversy at the time. It didn't look wrong, little did we know...
I remember going to SeaWorld when I was 12 and it was so much fun, we never thought for a second that there was anything wrong with it. I don't remember any controversy at the time. It didn't look wrong, little did we know...
The same thing I thought when I visited SeaWorld a couple of years ago
