In a twisted take on a tourism ad, a new PETA billboard depicts a man cuddling up to or mounted on an orca-shaped pool toy next to the words, “SeaWorld: Where Grown Men Perform Sex Acts on Orcas.”

PETA is negotiating with outdoor advertisers to run this billboard along the 5 Freeway in San Diego in the hopes of alerting would-be SeaWorld visitors that, at SeaWorld, trainers masturbate male orcas to get their sperm, and then insert tubes of semen into female orcas to impregnate them. Those who resist are taken from the water, where they are completely helpless and vulnerable and unable to swim away or fight back as SeaWorld staff perform the procedure.

“PETA’s billboard shines a light on the sordid orca breeding mill that operates behind the scenes at SeaWorld,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “SeaWorld’s business model relies on forcibly impregnating unwilling orcas so that their calves can be used as living museum pieces, confined to tiny concrete tanks, deprived of all that is natural to them, something nobody with a conscience can support.”

Despite scientific studies showing that the average age that females begin to reproduce in the wild is 14.9, SeaWorld begins impregnating orcas while they’re still children, as young as 8 years old. Blackfish subject Tilikum, whose severe psychological distress and aggression caused the death of three people, has been used to father 21 calves, although as of last year, only 10 are still alive.

UPDATE:

For years, PETA has been campaigning hard to end the cruel confinement of orcas at SeaWorld. Now, there is finally a payoff, as SeaWorld has announced that it is ending its breeding program immediately. This means that the orcas who have been forcibly bred and confined for years to tanks that are, to them, the size of a bathtub will be the last ones made to endure a miserable life of deprivation at the parks! Now, SeaWorld must open its tanks and release these long-suffering animals to ocean sanctuaries so that they can have some semblance of a life outside of prison tanks.

SeaWorld has taken a step forward, but more changes must follow. Help all the animals imprisoned by SeaWorld today by taking a moment to ask the company to immediately set in place a firm and rapid plan to release all the animals to sanctuaries where they will be given a semblance of the natural life they have been denied for so long.