“Trapped” underwater in a tiny tank excruciatingly close to the wide-open ocean, singer and actor Noah Cyrus stars in a powerful new PETA campaign that proclaims, “Life’s No Beach in Captivity. Boycott SeaWorld.”
The ad — which aims to put pressure on the abusement park to retire the long-suffering orcas it hold captive to seaside sanctuaries — was shot by top celebrity photographer Brian Bowen Smith and was made possible by James Costa and The Archibald Family Foundation, both proud PETA supporters.
“I love animals so much. To think that any animal would be trapped — it makes me so sad,” says Cyrus in an exclusive interview with PETA. “It’s like living in your bedroom for your entire life and never being able to go outside.”
PETA — whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” — notes that in the wild, orcas form complex relationships, work cooperatively to find food, and traverse up to 140 miles in the ocean every day. But orcas at SeaWorld are housed in incompatible groups inside tiny tanks, and some are even given the drug diazepam to manage their stress-induced aggressive behavior. So far, 41 orcas have died on SeaWorld’s watch, and six marine mammals have died at its parks this year alone.
Cyrus previously starred in a “Dissection Kills” ad for peta2, PETA’s youth division.
