Peta attacked for 'insulting' lawsuit for 'slave' whales

CONTROVERSIAL animal rights group Peta is in deep water again. By bringing a lawsuit against marine park SeaWorld  for 'enslaving' five killer whales, Peta risks the ire of African-Americans offended that the group is using the 13th amendment - designed to prevent slavery – to justify demands for animal rights.
 
"It is insulting", said the African-American author and political analyst Earl Ofari Hutchinson. "Clearly the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were passed directly as a result of a major bloody battle in this country to end slavery and to ensure civil and voting rights for African Americans."
 
Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) filed its lawsuit against SeaWorld yesterday and is demanding that the animals be released under the terms of the 13th amendment.

"All five of these orcas were violently seized from the ocean and taken from their families as babies," said Peta president Ingrid Newkirk.

"By any definition, these orcas are slaves - kidnapped from their homes, kept confined, denied everything that's natural to them and forced to perform tricks for SeaWorld's profit," Peta lawyer Jeff Kerr told the Associated Press, adding that the 13th amendment does not refer to a specific species.
 
SeaWorld, whose marine parks in San Diego and Orlando are named in the lawsuit, moved swiftly to deny that it mistreats animals. "No facility sets higher standards in husbandry, veterinary care and enrichment", a spokesman said, adding that the charge of violating the 13th amendment was "baseless and in many ways offensive".
 
Legal experts do not expect Peta to succeed. "The court will most likely not even get to the merits of the case", law professor David Favre told AP. "A court would not be predisposed to open up that box with fully unknown consequences."
 
One of the plaintiffs in Peta’s case is Tillikum, the killer whale implicated in three deaths since 1991. The most recent victim was 40-year old trainer Dawn Brancheau, who Tillikum drowned last year at the Orlando park.
 
Tillikum’s case became famous, as much for raising the questionable ethics of holding killer whales in captivity as for the tragedy of Brancheau’s death.
 
In a 2010 column, Alexander Cockburn compared Tillikum to Spartacus, the legendary leader of a slave rebellion. “The act of rebellion was entirely justified", Cockburn wrote, and criticised "the aesthetics of orca exploitation".
 
Peta also criticised SeaWorld at the time. Rock-star member Tommy Lee – also the former husband of Pamela Anderson – wrote a letter to SeaWorld directors accusing them of “sick and twisted” treatment of Tillikum, including “jacking him off”. The marine park denied this practice. ·