Is Peta's bid to free killer whales in Tillikum's interest?

THE 'SeaWorld Five' get their day in court today, when lawyers for the animal rights group Peta attempt to argue that the group of killer whales held at two marine parks are being subjected to slavery, in breach of the 13th Amendment.

Peta alleges that the killer whales - Tillikum, Katina, Corky, Kasatka and Ulises - "were forcibly taken from their families and natural habitats, are held captive at SeaWorld San Diego and SeaWorld Orlando... and forced to perform, all for [the] defendants' profit". The lawsuit hinges on whether the animals have rights under the 13th Amendment, which bans "slavery and involuntary servitude".

SeaWorld said when the allegations were first publicised last year that they were "baseless and in many ways offensive". Now a leading British conservationist has warned Peta's lawsuit is a "strategic error" which could backfire and lead to worse suffering for captive animals.

Philippa Brakes, senior biologist at the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, agrees with Peta that incarcerating a large-brained mammal such as a killer whale "amounts to slavery", but says the legal bid to have them released would not necessarily be recognised by the public.

Brakes told The Guardian that although the animals lead "hideous lives", few of those who have seen them in captivity are aware of their ordeals. She also cautioned about creating legal precedent with the move, which is being heard in court in America this week, for fear that if the case is lost then case law is enshrined against granting rights to "non-human persons".

"I would love to be wrong, and that they find for the orcas in this case, but I doubt very much that's going to happen, and I think it's a strategic error," she said. Brakes instead believes that animal rights groups should look to show that creatures such as orcas should be seen not as equals to humans, but as "persons with rights".

"It's more than court cases, it's really about changing people's attitudes and understanding," she said.

Writing for The Week in November last year, Alexander Cockburn endorsed Tillikum and the SeaWorld Five in their bid for freedom, invoking hundreds of years of legal precedent in which the rights of animals - and their consciousness - were recognised in common law.

Indeed Cockburn said it was only the dawn of capitalism that stripped animals of their rights: "They had been rendered, philosophically and literally, resources for guiltless exploitation, turned into objects of commerce, labour, food – and entertainment. Tillikum should get his day in court." ·