South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
Whale of an offer: Buy Sea World, free animals
By Sara K. Clarke

Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer

9:51 AM EDT, August 20, 2008

Forget about freeing just Willy. An animal-rights group says a supporter wants to buy one or more Sea Worlds from the theme parks' soon-to-be new owner so it can free all the animals, even killer whales.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals says an undisclosed donor wants to buy at least one Sea World park, then free the animals and replace them with virtual-reality or animatronic displays.

"We are very interested in this offer because the intelligent, social animals imprisoned at Sea World are . . . denied everything that is natural and important to them -- all in the name of 'entertainment,' " PETA wrote Aug. 14 to Carlos Brito, CEO of InBev NV/SA. Belgium-based InBev, one of the world's largest brewers, is to acquire the Sea World parks as part of its $52 billion acquisition of Anheuser-Busch Cos.

PETA spokeswoman Lisa Wathne said the Norfolk, Va., group's donor wants to remain anonymous and doesn't want to disclose how much he could pony up. "We don't know how high this donor will go, but he is serious. Whales, dolphins and other marine life are very important to him," she said.

An orca's freedom won't come cheap: Stock analyst Jack Russo of Edward D. Jones & Co. said Busch Entertainment Corp., Anheuser-Busch's Orlando-based theme-park unit, could be worth $5 billion or $6 billion. In 2001, the company sold Sea World Ohio for $110 million.

Fred Jacobs, a Busch Entertainment spokesman, said allegations of animal cruelty are unfounded. He termed the offer "a publicity stunt."

Thats stupid. Even if PETA did buy Sea World and let the animals loose, then the animals would just die without humans to feed them. Of course that wouldn't bother PETA anyway, since PETA is just as likely to kill the animals themselves - hypocrites,.

My thoughts exactly.

I mean as dumb as those Petards are, they SHOULD know that the survival of all of those Sea-World animals DEPENDS on humans. So when you take away the main thing that has been nurturing them and helping them survive all these years...gee I wonder what will happen to them in the wild.

To me it seems that PETA is just getting stupider by the day. Faggots.

what are they going to do have an adopt a whale day I wonder what the spaying/neutering for that would be hahahaha

that would be the dumbest shit in history to free those animals..release trained, captive, human dependent animals into the wild is pretty much an almost instant death sentence to the animals. the stupidity of Peta knows no logical bounds.

actually if peta did buy sea world, they wouldn't set them all free. they would put them to sleep like they do the other 92% of their animals I don't know if Peta could buy a big enough walk in freezer to hide all the sea world carcasses. SO DONATE MORE MONEY!