To date there are still two country artists, Justin Moore and Scotty McCreery, who are scheduled to perform at next spring's Bands, Brew & BBQ event at SeaWorld, but seven other artists including Willie Nelson, Martina McBride, and Trisha Yearwood have all pulled out of the event after either watching the documentary 'Blackfish' or due to fans' appeals for them to not perform at the park.
Up until now, SeaWorld has remained pretty quiet in the face of all the controversy. Now, however, they've decided it's time to officially defend themselves and have taken out full-page ads in papers around the country to try and explain why they're not the horrible orca abusers they've been made out to be.
In the ad (that you can read here), SeaWorld explain that they don't separate calves from their mothers, that they haven't obtained whales from the wild in 35 years, and that they are investing millions in the habitats for their whales, just to name a few of their defenses.
I doubt seriously that the ads are going to sway the people who are passionate about this subject, but they're trying.
If you haven't watched 'Blackfish' yet, you can now watch it in full on Netflix. You can also check out SeaWorld's website they've set up showing their side of things.
As for the two country artists still left on the SeaWorld Bands, Brew & BBQ event roster, Justin Moore and Scotty McCreery, I just wonder who will cave to the pressure next? A kind of funny thing is happening, though. Justin's Facebook is filled with people begging him to not perform at the event while Scotty's Facebook has basically nothing. It's odd. I just wonder if people don't realize that Scotty's scheduled to perform or if he's just getting a pass because he's young or something.
I've dug around and it appears he is still scheduled to perform. There is also a Change.org petition up asking him to not perform and it has over 28,000 signatures to date, so I'm not exactly sure why his Facebook is so squeaky clean in the please-don't-perform comments department, but it really is.
Do you suppose someone is wiping those comments off the page? Can a person delete comments from their Facebook page? Heck, I don't even know. It's iinteresting though.
