A Step Forward

How often can you say we have actually evolved in our behavior as a species? This means different things to different people but to me, the news today from San Diego California gives an unexpected jolt of surprising pleasure.
Just watch your own reaction. You may find it interesting.

Sea World is a water and sea life based amusement park with branches in California, Texas and Florida. They specialize in shows involving Orcas, those beautiful black and white whales who live in the Northern Oceans. Most Americans probably have some recollection of these shows from childhood.

The whale swims around a concrete pen, jumps around, takes a trainer around on its back, and gets a treat of fish. And this seems normal to us.

PETA, which stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is an organization easily faulted for their heavy-handed tactics, yet does a lot of good. Here is their mission statement:

"People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the largest animal rights organization in the world, with more than 2 million members and supporters. PETA focuses its attention on the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: on factory farms, in the clothing trade, in laboratories, and in the entertainment industry.

We also work on a variety of other issues, including the cruel killing of beavers, birds, and other "pests" as well as cruelty to domesticated animals. PETA works through public education, cruelty investigations, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns."

PETA is suing Sea World for Violating the constitutional rights of the Orcas, claiming they are being held in slavery. Which of course they are. Rather than summarize it, here is the text from the PETA website:


“In the first case of its kind, PETA, three marine-mammal experts, and two former orca trainers are filing a lawsuit asking a federal court to declare that five wild-caught orcas forced to perform at Sea World are being held as slaves in violation of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The filing—the first ever seeking to apply the 13th Amendment to nonhuman animals—names the five orcas as plaintiffs and also seeks their release to their natural habitats or seaside sanctuaries.

The suit is based on the plain text of the 13th Amendment, which prohibits the condition of slavery without reference to "person" or any particular class of victim. "Slavery is slavery, and it does not depend on the species of the slave any more than it depends on gender, race, or religion," says general counsel to PETA, Jeffrey Kerr.

The five wild-captured orca plaintiffs are Tilikum and Katina (both confined at SeaWorld Orlando) and Kasatka, Corky, and Ulises (all three confined at SeaWorld San Diego).

"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," says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. "The 13th Amendment prohibits slavery, and these orcas are, by definition, slaves."



Orcas are intelligent animals who, in the wild, work cooperatively, form complex relationships, communicate using distinct dialects, and swim up to 100 miles every day. At SeaWorld, they are forced to swim in circles in small, barren concrete tanks. Deprived of the opportunity to make conscious choices and to practice their cultural vocal, social, and foraging traditions, they are compelled to perform meaningless tricks for a reward of dead fish.

Our understanding of animals grows every day. Animals are no longer regarded as "things" to dominate, but as breathing, feeling beings with families, dialects, intellect, and emotions. Just as we look back with shame at a time when we enslaved other humans and viewed some people as property less deserving of protection and consideration, we will look back on our treatment of these animals with shame. The 13th Amendment exists to abolish slavery in all its forms—and this lawsuit is the next step.

The orcas are represented in the suit by what the law refers to as their "next friends": PETA, Ric O'Barry (a former orca and dolphin trainer and the star of the Academy Award–winning documentary The Cove), renowned marine biologist and orca expert Dr. Ingrid N. Visser, Orca Network founder Howard Garrett, and former SeaWorld trainers Samantha Berg and Carol Ray.

The groundbreaking suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California in San Diego.

Please help animals imprisoned by SeaWorld today. Click here to write to The Blackstone Group—the company that owns SeaWorld—and ask that it immediately set in place a firm and rapid plan to release the animals to sanctuaries that can provide them with an appropriate and more natural environment.”

Posted by PETA

So what do you think? Do you think that animals are here to use and abuse as we see fit? Do you think a society can be judged on the way it treats its weakest members? And alongside children, elderly and handicapped, doesn’t that include animals?

I don’t think there is much of an argument for keeping the Orcas captive, personally. Watching highly intelligent and exquisitely beautiful mammals do pointless tricks for the glee of crowds can’t be good for kids, as it will teach them that even if such spectacles are not right, they are still normal.

I realize we live in a world filled with human slavery. And that many if not most people find it perfectly ok to eat factory farmed animals. Many if not most people are not concerned at all with how animals are treated because we are the dominant species and even if you beat your dog in public view, it’s your business because its your dog. And that many if not most people don’t give a damn if or how we share the planet with our wild friends, and that most people for sure don’t think about elephants in a circus, orca at sea world, the millions of unwanted pets that die every year, big cats in cages throughout the world, dancing bears, animal parts in Chinese medicine, and the list goes on and on and on.

Many of us can’t even treat our own families decently. Most of us have serious problems and are unhappy in some major way. Most of us will join a mob if given the chance, and most of us are pretty easily led into dehumanizing other groups of humans, through religion or via color, sexual orientation, or ethnic background. It’s a pretty sad situation.

I wish I didn’t see the world as bleakly as I do, but then again, I’ve earned it, getting to this age and not taking anti-depressants.

If we lived in a truly just society, what would it look like? Would we still use animals the way we do? Or would we live with them differently? Would we still feel entitled to capture them from the wild, ripping them from their families and enslaving them for our amusement? Or would we take a different approach, perhaps going to see them in the wild, and enjoying their wildness and freedom rather than trying to choke it off?

This urge to catch something and imprison it must be natural. People do it to each other all the time. Men love my independence, and immediately want it for their own, taking it from me. Lots of men do that to women, as women are naturally more free in their beings I think.

Any opinions on this? What do you think of Sea World? Have you been? What about PETA? Have you had an experience with them? Do you think this is a good move? Are you relieved? Can you imagine a world where every creature is respected?

For more information on Orca






People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)

SeaWorld