Photos: “Chained” Mother and Babies Confront TUI at Cardiff Airport

Photos: “Chained” Mother and Babies Confront TUI at Cardiff Airport

Cardiff, Wales –Today, a PETA supporter and her two babies, dressed as a captive orca family and bound in chains, gathered at Cardiff Airport – where TUI has announced a major expansion – and called on the travel giant to stop selling tickets to facilities like Loro Parque, where orcas and other dolphins are imprisoned in tanks. The orca family was surrounded by fellow animal defenders holding a giant banner reading “TUI: Check out of Dolphin Prisons.”

Images and video footage are available here and here.

The demonstration comes as TUI remains the last major travel provider in the UK to promote and sell tickets to dolphin prisons, despite mounting public concern over the welfare of captive marine mammals. At Loro Parque, young orca Teno has already been seen joining his mother in performances despite TUI’s stated policy against supporting facilities that breed cetaceans for entertainment. Its continued support for facilities like this directly contradicts its policy and enables the continued commercial exploitation of marine mammals.

“No holiday memory is worth a lifetime in a tank,” says PETA’s Senior Campaigns Manager Kate Werner. “While other major travel companies have stopped promoting marine abusement parks, TUI is still cashing in on the misery of orcas and other dolphins. It’s time for TUI to axe dolphin prisons from its itineraries.”

In nature, orcas and other dolphins live in large, complex social groups and swim vast distances every day in the open ocean. But at facilities like SeaWorld and Loro Parque, they spend their days floating listlessly or swimming in circles in tanks comparable in size to a human living in a bathtub. Most die far short of their natural life span, and they often suffer from distressing health conditions that are not seen in their wild counterparts and perpetuate their misery.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment or abuse in any way” – points out that when it comes to the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a bull is a dog is a boy. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow PETA on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.

Contact:

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

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