Ant and Dec urged to end partnership with TUI as PETA brands them 'misery ambassadors'

Ant McPartlin and Dec Donnelly have been urged to cut ties with TUI, with animal welfare organisation PETA saying the travel company promotes 'marine abusement parks'

Animal welfare organisation PETA has urged Ant McPartlin and Dec Donnelly to end their partnership with travel firm TUI over its promotion of "marine abusement parks".

Presenting duo Ant and Dec, both 48, have worked with TUI on several occasions, including through the now-rested ITV show Saturday Night Takeaway. Last year, the pair were announced as the company's 'Happiness Ambassadors' for a social media campaign, which has continued into this year.

Alongside offering various holidays, TUI promotes marine parks like SeaWorld on its website. There are several branches of SeaWorld, most notably its park in Orlando, Florida, which as well as hosting rides, offers activities on site featuring various animals, including whales and dolphins.

PETA - known formally as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - has sent Ant and Dec a letter with the request to end their partnership with TUI. The Mirror has exclusively obtained a copy of the letter, dated September 20.

The letter, signed by PETA's senior campaigns manager Kate Werner, states: "I'm writing from [PETA] to urge you to step down as TUI's 'happiness ambassadors'. We hope that after learning more about the marine abusement parks TUI promotes, you’ll reconsider partnering with a company that chases profit margins at the expense of animal welfare.

"In your role, you're certainly not ambassadors for the clever and playful cetaceans who are kept in cramped tanks for human amusement and suffer greatly for their entire lives. At SeaWorld, which TUI promotes, more than 40 orcas and over 500 other dolphins and whales have died. Severe trauma, intestinal gangrene, and cardiovascular failure are just some of the many diseases these cetaceans exploited for entertainment suffered from.

"In the wild, where they belong, orcas can swim up to 150 miles a day. But at marine parks, they're imprisoned in tanks of chemically treated water with no opportunity to work in pods to find food, choose their own mate, or dive deep through the ocean currents. Instead, they swim in endless circles, float listlessly, and gnaw on the metal bars of their concrete tanks as a result of stress – sometimes until their teeth break."

It's further stated that "public opposition to this exploitation" has led to other travel providers ending their promotion of venues that keep cetaceans in captivity. The letter concludes: "It's what consumers want and what animals deserve, so we hope you'll stop being misery ambassadors and use your influence to urge TUI to stop supporting this suffering - as true happiness comes from helping others."

Kate's also said: "Ant and Dec choose to be entertainers, but highly intelligent dolphins and whales are forced to perform tricks at marine parks, where they're denied everything that's natural and important to them."

SeaWorld, which has several parks in the US, has attracted much criticism over the years and in 2016 that announced that it would be ending its killer whale breeding programme. A message on its website states: "In 2016, SeaWorld announced that we were ending our killer whale breeding program and that the orcas in our care are the last generation at our park. Our goal is to inspire and educate guests to take action by seeing these magnificent animals up-close to better understand why protecting wildlife and our environment is so critical today." It also states that each visit to SeaWorld "helps support animal rescue efforts".

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