Lisa Singer, exclusive to Global Animal
It looks like Twilight star Christian Serratos won’t be heading to Macy’s anytime soon.
Even with her new role on the hit zombie drama The Walking Dead, the actress still took the time to express her anger after learning the retail chain was planning to include a SeaWorld float featuring Shamu in this year’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
The outspoken animal supporter took to Twitter to voice her outrage:
“Had no idea @Macys supported @SeaWorld makes me think twice about shopping there
ORCAS NEED U! Please ask @Macys to CANCEL @SeaWorld’s float in the Thanksgiving Day Parade!”
And Serratos isn’t alone. Since the release of the controversial documentary Blackfish, people are now more aware than ever of the abusive treatment inflicted on killer whales at SeaWorld and other marine parks.
The film depicts the destructive impact that living in captivity has on such intelligent creatures; from the infant orcas being brutally kidnapped from their mothers to the claustrophobic tanks they’re forced to live in for their entire lives.
Despite PETA’s efforts to inform Macy, Inc. about SeaWorlds history of abuse towards animals, the department store still plans to include a SeaWorld float in their upcoming Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. PETA’s call to action reads:
SeaWorld keeps intelligent, social ocean animals such as whales and dolphins in pitifully small tanks…some of these animals were violently captured and torn away from their homes in the wild, and many are forced to learn and perform circus-style tricks.
SeaWorld and other marine parks are not educational. Instead, they teach people that it is acceptable to imprison animals, deprive them of their freedom of movement, forbid them the chance to establish a natural territory and explore, breed and separate them as we please, and watch them go insane from boredom and loneliness.
For 87 years, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has been a holiday tradition seen by more than 3.5 million people in New York and fifty million people at home.
Should that tradition celebrate and promote an organization that snatches animals from their natural environments and subjects them to such cruel indignities?
Go to the “Stop SeaWorld” Facebook page to find out what SeaWorld really is about! And watch “Blackfish” to learn the truth about the treatment of orcas in captivity!