PETA to Sue SeaWorld for Violating Constitutional Rights of Orca Whales
PETA knows no line, and the animal rights organization is now filing suit against SeaWorld, alleging that the park chain is violating the constitutional rights of orca whales. PETA, three marine-mammal experts and two former orca trainers will file a lawsuit tomorrow in Los Angeles asking a federal court to declare that five wild-caught orcas - who are forced to perform at SeaWorld - are being held as slaves in violation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. Let's take a look at the formal language of said amendment.
Amendment 13 - Slavery Abolished. Ratified 12/6/1865.
1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation
Tomorrow's request will mark the first of its kind seeking to apply the amendment to nonhuman animals. The suit names all five orcas as plaintiffs and asks for their release.
PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk said in a release, "All five of these orcas were violently seized from the ocean and taken from their families as babies. They are denied freedom and everything else that is natural and important to them while kept in small concrete tanks and reduced to performing stupid tricks," adding, "The 13th Amendment prohibits slavery, and these orcas are, by definition, slaves."
One of the five plaintiffs is Tilikum, the six-ton male who grabbed a trainer at SeaWorld in Orlando, FL at the end of a performance and dragged her underwater until she drowned in February 2010. The other plaintiffs are Katina based at SeaWorld in Orlando, FL and Corky, Kasatka and Ulises at SeaWorld San Diego.
Wild orcas typically swim up to 100 miles daily, but at SeaWorld, they swim in small circles within the confines of barren concrete tanks. SeaWorld depicted the suit as "baseless," according to the Associated Press, but Jeff Kerr, PETA's general counsel, and his five-member legal team have spent 18 months preparing the case.
