by Russ Rector To: SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment (9205 Southpark Center Loop #400, Orlando, FL 32819) Necropsy of wild animals is essential in conservation. Sea mammals of key interest include the orca or ‘killer whale’. Tilikum, a famous captive orca presented to the public as education for over 31 years, is regularly described […]
Could SeaWorld survive if founded today?
In quest of aquatic novelty SAN DIEGO, ORLANDO, SAN ANTONIO––A false alarm that SeaWorld San Diego might phase out orca exhibitions in early November 2015 upstaged word that would-be aquarium magnate Ammon Covino had been arrested––again––for wildlife trafficking. Even in San Antonio, Texas, where Ammon’s brother Vince Covino operates an aquarium almost in the […]
Sinking SeaWorld shoves 311 staff overboard
ORLANDO, Florida––SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. reportedly threw 311 staff to the sharks of unemployment on December 12, 2014, less than 24 hours after president and chief executive officer Jim Atchison walked the plank, in the wake of a 28% dive in third-quarter profits. SeaWorld stock continued a Titanic plunge from more than $40.00 per share at […]
Spectacular Nature: Corporate Culture and the SeaWorld Experience
by Susan G. Davis University of California Press (Berkeley, CA 94720), 1997. 313 pages, paperback; $18.95. Reviewed by Merritt Clifton Spectacular Nature author Susan G. Davis spent eight years studying SeaWorld San Diego, 1987-1995. I spent under eight hours at SeaWorld San Diego, on May 7, 1999 but it was time enough to confirm her […]
Dirty Pool, part 3: Keiko
by Merritt Clifton January/February 1995 I had not planned to write a third part of my “Dirty Pool” series on propaganda interfering with marine mammal protection, but as the second part went to press on November 22, 1994, Warner Brothers and New Regency Productions donated $2 million to a new Free Willy/Keiko Foundation formed by Earth […]
Dirty Pool, part 1
by Merritt Clifton November 1994 ORLANDO, NEW YORK CITY, MYSTIC––Activists don’t believe anything they hear from the “aquaprison industry.” Oceanarium people don’t trust activists to know truth when they see it. And small wonder on either side, given the pitch of the propaganda for and against keeping marine mammals in captivity. This debate differs from […]