Leicester Locals Urge TUI to Sever Ties With SeaWorld

For Immediate Release:
12 February 2019

Contact:
Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 222; [email protected]

LEICESTER LOCALS URGE TUI TO SEVER TIES WITH SEAWORLD

PETA Campaign Calls For Travel Group to Drop Abusement Park From Its Itineraries

Leicester – On Saturday, holding signs proclaiming, “TUI: Stop Selling Tickets to SeaWorld,” and “TUI Profits From Orcas’ Misery,” a group of local activists stood outside the travel provider’s Humberstone Gate branch to urge the company to stop giving a financial lifeline to SeaWorld, the world’s most notorious marine park. The demonstration, coordinated by PETA, was part of a national day of action during which protests were held in more than a dozen locations across the UK.

Photos are also available here and here.

“If TUI hopes to maintain a shred of credibility with animal-loving British holidaymakers, it must stop profiting from orca abuse,” says PETA Director Elisa Allen. “PETA is calling on the company to join Thomas Cook, STA Travel, and many other travel providers in rejecting SeaWorld’s orca prisons, where intelligent marine mammals have no choice but to swim in endless circles around tiny concrete tanks.”

While orcas in the wild form complex relationships, work cooperatively to find food, and traverse up to 140 miles of ocean every day, those at SeaWorld are housed in incompatible groups in tiny tanks and have even been given the drug diazepam to manage stress-induced aggressive behaviour. Forty-one orcas and numerous other animals have died on SeaWorld’s watch – far short of their natural life expectancies.

Since October 2018, PETA and its international affiliates – whose mottos read, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” – have led protests outside numerous TUI locations across the UK and Germany. They’ve also prompted almost 75,000 people people, including Sharon Osbourne, to write to the company to urge it to join other travel providers – including STA Travel and Responsible Travel – in refusing to sell tickets to SeaWorld.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

#