Letters: Ban orca slavery

Re “Dim view of orca bill in San Diego,” March 9

Breeding, capturing, selling or imprisoning orcas should be banned. Most of all, forcing them to perform should be illegal.

These magnificent denizens of the deep (and not of Sea World’s shallow ponds) are the slaves of the animal world. Forced to perform unnatural acts for food and care, they are far from freedom in the pods to which they belong.

The excuse that they are essential to the economy of San Diego is akin to one of the excuses for the sorry chapter of our past known as slavery. Plantations just couldn’t exist without slaves, it seemed, and they were necessary to the economy. Well, the South recovered, and so would San Diego.

No animals should be part of an act — not prancing elephants, dancing horses, skating bears or myriad other obscenities committed against animals. Free all orcas and criminalize the act of animal slavery that is now legal.

Helene Chirinian

Rancho Palos Verdes

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