Fw: Help shut down orca prisons today!

YES, SAVING MARINE MAMMAL'S IS IMPORTANT TOO. WONT YOU PLEASE JOIN US BY SIGNING THE PETITION ON FACEBOOK. THANK YOU -- Subject: Fw: Help shut down orca prisons today! To: Date: Wednesday, May 23, 2012, 10:50 PM PLEASE TAKE A LOOK AT THIS.  AFTER YOU SIGN THE WHALE PETITION IT WILL OPEN UP TO AT LEAST 20-30 MORE PETITIONS FOR ANIMALS.  PLEASE REMEMBER THE BABY WHALE IN CRITICAL CONDITION IN ONE OF OUR "AMUSEMENT" PARKS.  DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO HER MOMMA.  HOPE EVERYONE HAS A FUN, SAFE AND HUMANE HOLIDAY.   From: Ingrid Newkirk <donore@peta.org> Subject: Help shut down orca prisons today! Date: Tuesday, May 22, 2012, 10:58 AM Trouble viewing this message? View this message online >     Dear Barbara, SeaWorld is the site of some serious tragedies for both humans and animals. The SeaWorld parks have a terrible record of animal deaths from captivity-related causes. Yet Blackstone—the company that owns SeaWorld—turns a blind eye to the cruelty as well as to the unsafe conditions for both humans and animals. In recent years alone, a mother and baby orca have died unexpectedly and trainers at the parks have been hurt and even killed—their bodies seized, slammed against the tank walls, and held underwater to drown by a deeply frustrated captive orca. Please help us ramp up the pressure on Blackstone to release these animals into coastal sanctuaries and prepare them to return to their ocean homes and lives. Can I count on your help once again to pressure Blackstone to set up a plan immediately to release the animals into coastal sanctuaries and prepare them for a return to the oceans where they belong? The intelligent, social ocean-dwelling animals kept in the pitifully small tanks at SeaWorld are denied everything that is natural and important to them. In the wild, orcas and members of other dolphin species live in large, intricate social groups and swim up to 100 miles a day in the open ocean, but Blackstone and SeaWorld keep captive orcas and dolphins in small enclosures that would be like confining us to life in a bathtub. In nature, orcas and other dolphins navigate with the aid of echolocation, but in tanks the reverberations from their own sonar bounce off the walls, driving some of them insane. World-renowned oceanographer Jean-Michel Cousteau compared keeping orcas in tanks to "a person being blindfolded in a jail cell." These animals have often been violently captured and torn away from their homes and families in the sea and forced to perform meaningless and repetitious circus-style tricks. According to whistleblower insiders, withholding food and isolating animals who refuse to perform are common training methods. At facilities such as SeaWorld, dolphins and other sea animals routinely die from stress and other captivity-related causes. Marine parks such as SeaWorld teach children the wrong lessons: that it is somehow acceptable to imprison animals, forbid them from experiencing the joy of establishing their natural territory and exploring their world, separate them from loved ones, and force them to perform confusing and unnatural tricks to bring in tourist dollars. Visitors to SeaWorld see mere shadows of what these graceful and awe-inspiring animals are like in nature. Captive dolphins are defeated and depressed beings who cannot engage in natural behavior and cannot live as nature intended. With the Memorial Day kickoff of summer tourist season just days away, we need to do all that we can to help these animals. Please add your voice to the thousands who have spoken out against cruel captivity—sign the petition today! By signing our new petition today, you'll be letting Blackstone know that orcas and other marine animals deserve the freedom that SeaWorld has long denied them. Very truly yours, Ingrid E. Newkirk President      Share on Facebook    Share on Twitter Click to update your e-mail preferences or to unsubscribe. This e-mail was sent by PETA, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510 USA.