Two years after the premiere of Blackfish and five years after a captive orca killed his trainer during a performance, SeaWorld is still sputtering along, somehow. Although attendance has fallen by 4.2 percent and shares are down 40 percent, its parks still brought in 22.4 million visitors last year and the company is in the middle of a rebranding push. That’s why—for those of us who don’t want to live in a world where a species whose breathtaking intellectual capacity we are only beginning to understand are abused and driven insane on behalf of the hot dog-wielding masses—this latest development is so important: SeaWorld has been hit by three class-action lawsuits in less than a month, The Guardian reports; the most recent suit demands that SeaWorld be upfront with the public about the miserable, life-threatening conditions of its performing orcas.
San Francisco residents Mark Anderson and Ellexa Conway, both former visitors to the San Diego park, are seeking a court order requiring SeaWorld “to cease making false statements about the health and welfare of the orcas and to make a factual public statement about the orcas, refuting previous false claims.”
Earth Island Institute, based in Berkeley, California, is described as the “driving force” behind the class action suit; Anderson and Conway will be standing as representatives of the general public. Mark Palmer, assistant director of the Earth Island Institute’s International Marine Mammal Project, told the Guardian: “We want to force SeaWorld to tell the truth.”
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