Berlin Sarah Connor: "Don't visit any whale or dolphin shows"

The musician Sarah Connor is campaigning for the rights of orcas and, as she explains, has received a lot of encouragement for her efforts. Together with the organization Peta, the 44-year-old had demanded that the travel company Tui remove marine parks with captive orcas from its vacation offers. A spokesperson for the travel company declined to comment when asked.

"It's not in keeping with the times," Connor told dpa. "We now know a lot more about these animals than we did 10 or 20 years ago. Orcas are highly intelligent animals that live in complex family structures. Always led by a matriarch, an experienced mother or grandmother, they pass on their knowledge, and the sons often stay with their mothers for life."

Connor, who comes from Delmenhorst and lives in Berlin, has often seen the whales in the wild. "There they swim up to 200 kilometers a day. In captivity, they vegetate in an aquarium, show pathological behavior, grieve, become depressed or aggressive and then often pose a danger to the trainers."

The singer's appeal is therefore: "Don't visit any whale or dolphin shows. No matter what the parks' stupid counterarguments are, it's cruelty to animals."

SDA