Thomas Cook axes trips to SeaWorld over animal welfare concerns

British holiday firm Thomas Cook will stop selling trips to animal parks which keep captive killer whales, including SeaWorld in Florida and Loro Parque in Tenerife, their CEO has announced.

“We have actively engaged with a range of animal welfare specialists in the last 18 months, and taken account of the scientific evidence they have provided”, Peter Fankhauser wrote in a blog post.

“We have also taken feedback from our customers, more than 90% of whom told us that it was important that their holiday company takes animal welfare seriously,” he added, confirming that tickets to such attractions will no longer be sold from next summer.

Animal welfare concerns over the treatment of orcas in captivity have been amplified since the critically lauded 2013 documentary Blackfish, which argued that the highly intelligent animals are psychologically traumatised in tourist attractions such as SeaWorld.