Joyce Kuhl of Aiken, South Carolina, is suing the SeaWorld Park in Orlando, Florida, After a December, 2013 visit. She is demanding a refund of her $97 ticket as well as reimbursement for people who visited the park in the last four years.
The lawsuit outlines several accusations of abuse directed at SeaWorld Orlando's killer whales or Orcas.
According to the public court document, the whales are confined in small tanks containing various chemicals and chlorine solution "many times stronger than household bleach." It also states that these whales are given various psychoactive drugs such as Diazepam or generic valium to sooth the whales 'aggressive reactions to their confinement conditions.
She also claims that orcas are kept in holding pools as shallow as eight feet for hours day, where they are "essentially roasting" in the sun and receiving sunburns so severe that their injuries are masked with black zinc oxide.
Kuhl argues that SeaWorld orcas typically live into their 20s under these conditions as opposed to those of their natural habitat where they survive 30 to 50 years.
The lawsuit claims the park receives about 5 million visitors a year and a typical ticket costs about $100 per person.
However, SeaWorld says it's ready to fight the lawsuit which it calls "baseless, and filled with inaccuracies."
In a statement released Friday, the company said the lawsuit was an "attempt by animal right extremists to use the courts to advance an anti-zoo agenda."
The Orlando lawsuit marks the second one filed against SeaWorld in less than three weeks. A similar class action lawsuit was filed in California last month accusing SeaWorld of misleading the public about its treatment of killer whales. That lawsuit is targeting all three SeaWorld locations in San Diego, California; San Antonio, Texas and Orlando.
In a statement responding to the California lawsuit, the company argued that it's regularly inspected by the government as well as two professional zoological associations. It claims it was recently "granted SeaWorld accreditation from its independent accreditation commission."
