{"id":363105,"date":"2010-02-25T16:12:07","date_gmt":"2010-02-25T21:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.popcrunch.com\/?p=94511"},"modified":"2010-02-25T16:12:07","modified_gmt":"2010-02-25T21:12:07","slug":"bob-barker-seaworld-open-letter-%e2%80%9cfree-the-whales%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/363105","title":{"rendered":"Bob Barker SeaWorld Open Letter: \u201cFree The Whales!\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A television legend wants SeaWorld shut down. Bob Barker has penned an open letter to the owners of SeaWorld, imploring bosses of the popular US theme parks to “Free The Whales” in the wake of Wednesday’s deadly orca attack that left a 40-year-old trainer dead and thousands of spectators crippled with fear.<\/p>\n

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The animal rights supporter and former Price is Right<\/em> host is speaking out against SeaWorld owners, The Blackstone Group, after the tragic death of a killer whale trainer at the company’s Orlando theme park yesterday afternoon. Bob is urging them to close the sea mammal attractions and replace them with virtual reality exhibits.<\/p>\n

“The death of yet another trainer at SeaWorld did not have to happen, and I must appeal to you to take strong action now so that it never happens again,”<\/em> Barker wrote.<\/p>\n

Veteran SeaWorld whale trainer Dawn Brancheau, 40, was killed Wednesday when, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, a whale pulled her into a pool by her hair. She later drowned. Celebrity zookeeper Jack Hanna said Brancheau — his friend of 10 years — would not want anything to happen to the killer whale that dragged her to her death. However, SeaWorld officials knew that the orca responsible for yesterday’s attack has been linked to three human deaths since 1991. <\/p>\n

On Wednesday, President of Seaworld Orlando Dan Brown told reporters that a trainer’s death had never occured at one of their parks before. However, the whale in question was responsible for the death of a part-time trainer at another sea park 19 years ago.<\/p>\n

Unacceptable, says Bob. Writing on the behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, asked Blackstone Group to release all its animals to sanctuaries.<\/p>\n

“The intelligent, social, ocean animals kept in the most pitifully small tanks at SeaWorld are denied everything that is natural and important to them. In the wild, they swim up to 100 miles a day in the open ocean, but captured dolphins are confined to small tanks where the reverberations from their own sonar bounce off the walls, driving some of them insane. Some of these animals were violently captured from their homes, many are forced to learn circus-style tricks, and according to whistleblower tips from trainers, withholding food and isolating animals who refuse to perform are common training methods. The only thing that people learn from visiting a SeaWorld theme park is how miserable life is for animals held there,”<\/em> Barker wrote.<\/p>\n

Bob will be on tonight’s Larry King Live<\/em> to discuss his plea to SeaWorld. CLICK HERE<\/a><\/strong> to read Barker’s full letter to the theme park…..<\/p>\n

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A television legend wants SeaWorld shut down. Bob Barker has penned an open letter to the owners of SeaWorld, imploring bosses of the popular US theme parks to “Free The Whales” in the wake of Wednesday’s deadly orca attack that left a 40-year-old trainer dead and thousands of spectators crippled with fear. The animal rights […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5335,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-363105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5335"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}