Pamela Anderson's birthday is this week, and the only gift that she wants is freedom for Corky — an orca the same age as her — who was captured in 1969 off the British Columbia coast near Anderson’s hometown and is currently being held captive at SeaWorld.
“Please don’t let her die in a tank that, to her, is comparable to the size of a bathtub,” Anderson writes in a letter to new SeaWorld CEO Gustavo Antorcha. To illustrate her point, she appears in a new PETA ad, posing in a tub in her birthday suit beneath the words “Could You Live in a Bathtub for Decades?”
“Corky’s brother and sister are still alive and flourishing in the wild,” Anderson writes, “and a Canadian scientist who has been studying her family wants to bring her home. It’s within your power to release this long-suffering orca to a seaside sanctuary in a protected bay of her home waters.” The orca was used in a now-illegal breeding program in which all seven of her offspring died within weeks.
There’s global momentum for SeaWorld to create sea sanctuaries. The National Aquarium is retiring the dolphins it held captive — including one who was born at SeaWorld — to such a habitat, beluga whales are being moved from a Chinese marine park to a sanctuary in Iceland, and the Canadian Parliament just voted to ban dolphin and whale captivity outright.
