Robert Lindsay Slams TUI for Profiting from Dolphin Abuse: ‘I Wonder How You Sleep at Night’
Robert Lindsay Slams TUI for Profiting from Dolphin Abuse: ‘I Wonder How You Sleep at Night’
London/Buckinghamshire – As Britons start dreaming of their summer travel plans, award-winning actor Robert Lindsay, star of My Family and Sherwood, sent an urgent letter to TUI UK & Ireland’s new managing director Neil Swanson – who was appointed in October – calling on him to restore the company’s reputation and stop selling tickets to marine parks.
“I wonder how you sleep at night, given TUI’s dubious distinction of being the UK’s last major travel provider to sell tickets to watery prisons that hold marine animals captive,” writes Lindsay.
In his letter (available here), Lindsay explains how highly intelligent dolphins and whales suffer at SeaWorld and other marine abusement parks, where they have nothing to do but swim in endless tiny circles and chew on the metal bars of their tanks. He writes that life in a barren concrete tank “is not only desperately boring but deadly, as my friends at PETA tell me more than 40 orcas and over 500 other dolphins and whales have died on SeaWorld’s watch.”
Lindsay joins a long list of celebrities – including Morrissey, Sharon Osbourne, and tennis star Sir Andy Murray – and over 200,000 PETA entity supporters who have urged TUI to drop marine parks from its itineraries. He concludes his letter with a powerful plea to the new director: “While your predecessor left a legacy of wilful ignorance, you can still emerge as a compassionate, imaginative leader by steering TUI away from the muddy waters of animal abuse. Please sever ties with marine park operators.”
TUI is the last major travel provider to profit from dolphin abuse. Jet2holidays, Expedia, Tripadvisor, Thomas Cook, Virgin Atlantic Holidays, British Airways Holidays, Club Med, Airbnb, Booking.com, and over 100 other UK companies – have stopped selling tickets to places that keep orcas and other dolphins in tanks for entertainment.
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” – points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow PETA UK on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.
Contact:
Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]
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