Tony Azevedo, the American water polo player who is about to embark on his fifth Olympic Games this summer, has launched an ad campaign with PETA to try to get SeaWorld to return their orcas to sanctuaries out in the ocean.
Azevedo and PETA are continuing the fight against SeaWorld, where animals including orcas and bottlenose dolphins are kept in captivity for their entire lives and have typically dealt with depression, anxiety, and other negative effects of living isolated in small tanks. The PETA ad campaign talks more about the dangers that captivity poses for these animals, and calls for viewers to ask SeaWorld to release the animals into sanctuaries “where they will be given a semblance of the natural life they have been denied for so long.”
courtesy of PETA
“SeaWorld’s tiny tanks are the equivalent of sticking someone like me in a bathtub for life,” says Azevedo. “I’m joining PETA in calling on SeaWorld to give these animals a taste of freedom in coastal sanctuaries.”
An avid supporter of animal rights, Azevedo has an entire section on his website dedicated to similar causes. You can read more about Azevedo’s campaign on his website here.
Azevedo and Team USA will be on a quest for Olympic gold over the next few weeks, as water polo teams from across the world will come head to head, tournament style, with medals on the line. The gold medal match, along with the match for bronze, will be contested on August 20th.
Azevedo was named to the Olympic squad several weeks ago, and will make history as the first American male water polo player to play in his fifth Games.
Goes to show that Tony hasn’t fully committed to the research. He’s hearing one side of the story, but what do you do with a mammal that was born in captivity and has only known a “bathtub” their entire life? What assurances do you have that once you place them in their own organic sanctuary they won’t try and beach themselves or become further depressed? Is it right to have a SeaWorld? No – but that doesn’t mean you take a bad situation and make it worse. Better to push your efforts to stopping the illegal killing of whales and dolphins in the Pacific. By the way – who is this guy?