PETA Says Latest Attack Illustrates Inherent Danger of Dolphin Cove Attraction
For Immediate Release:
December 4, 2012
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Orlando, Fla. -- Alerted to a November 21 incident this weekend in which an 8-year-old girl sustained puncture wounds and a swollen hand when a dolphin at SeaWorld's Dolphin Cove rose up out of the water and bit her as she was feeding the animal, PETA sent an urgent letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) asking the agency to investigate the incident and hold SeaWorld accountable for endangering both the dolphin and the public in violation of the federal Animal Welfare Act.
"This isn't the first time that a captive dolphin at SeaWorld has bitten and injured a child, and there is no reason to believe that it will be the last," says general counsel to PETA Jeff Kerr. "Allowing deprived and frustrated wild animals to have direct contact with children in order to make a buck is asking for disaster—and PETA believes that it's against federal law."
SeaWorld has a long history of injuries and deaths from dangerous interactions between trainers and marine mammals, including more than 100 incidents of orca aggression in its own records. In the wild, dolphins can swim at speeds of up to 25 miles per hour and travel as far as 100 miles in a day. But at SeaWorld, these highly intelligent social animals are confined to tiny, barren concrete tanks and forced to beg for dead fish—a physically and psychologically destructive environment that inevitably leads the animals to act out.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.