Introduction to Seaworld:
Founded in March 1960, SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment is a family entertainment, attraction, and amusement park with its headquarters in Orlando, Florida, and serving other areas such as San Antonia, Texas, Tampa Florida, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, San Diego, California, and Williamsburg, Virginia among other areas. Across the United States, SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment operates seven theme parks and five water parks.
Current Problem:
Lawsuit by PETA:
PETA, filed a lawsuit against SeaWorld on October 2011 on behalf of five wild-captured orcas. It was seeking a declaration from the court that the five orcas had been subjected to involuntary servitude and were serving as slaves in violation of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The PETA’s lawsuit asserted that the conditions under which the five orcas were living constituted the very definition of slavery. This claim was supported by two former SeaWorld trainers and three orca experts.
As per PETA, Katina, Kasatka, Ulises, and Corky, who were the plaintiffs in the case, were captured, taken and confined to the equivalent of concrete bathtubs away from their ocean homes and families. Here, SeaWorld forced them to earn money for the company by performing and entertaining SeaWorld’s customers. The complainants also claimed that these wild animals had been turned into virtual breeding machines in an effort to provide SeaWorld with more performers for its cruel entertainment shows.
PETA, in addition to seeking a declaration of the slavery treatment of the orcas, was also seeking the release of all these five orcas to an appropriate environment where they can exist free from the improper treatment, such as being relocated to the coastal sanctuaries. The complainants claimed that a more protected sea pens would allow the orcas to have a greater freedom of movement and an opportunity to sense, communicate and see, while coexisting with other wild species and other ocean animals. It would also provide an opportunity for them to feel the tides and waves of the sea as well as to engage in the behaviors that they had been denied for a long time by business-oriented individuals and entertainment firms such as the SeaWorld.
In the words of the Harvard law professor and constitutional scholar Laurence H. Tribe said, “People may well look back on this lawsuit and see in it a perceptive glimpse into a future of greater compassion for species other than our own.”
BLACKFISH:
In 2013, Gabriela Cowperthwaite released a documentary called “Blackfish” centred around the death of animal trainers at the Orlando park. It is reported that Brancheau was carried under water by Tilikum, one of the killer whales, and was drowned. This was not the first violent incident in the sea associated with Tilikum. Alongside two other female orca, in 1991, Tilikum held Keltie Byrne, a 20 year-old trainer, under water at the Sealand, now-defunct, in the Pacific park in British Columbia. Also in 1999, Daniel P. Dukes was found dead in his tank after it was reported to have been hiding overnight in SeaWorld where Tilikum was kept.
Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s Blackfish film further claimed that confined circumstances drove whales mad. In fact, whales and other intensely social animals were separated from their families, and held in enclosures not much more than two body-lengths long when they are used to travelling up to 2,000kms. It is also reported that captive whales have life expectancy shorter than that of wild whales. Specifically, captive male whales are reported to live up to 17-30 years while wild whales live for up to 50 to 60 years. Wild female whales can live up to 100 years.
Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s Blackfish film painted a compelling picture of an inhumane industry, in which it purported that SeaWorld was operating in, that turned orca into killers.
Decline in Income:
Initially, SeaWorld had announced that it was going to clear all the orca shows especially in the San Diego theme park before the end of two years. This was the company’s attempt to reestablish its rebrand as one of the most recognized animal conservation in the United States, as opposed to being one of the leading entertainment companies in the country. This move was fueled by the mounting protests against the company’s orca shows, and also to oppose the strategies taken by some California lawmakers to ban SeaWorld’s breeding in captivity.
In August 2014, SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment claimed that the CNN’s documentary negatively affected the company’s revenues as well as its San Diego, California Park. Moreover, the company announced on 11th December, 2014, that Jim Atchison, the President and Chief Executive Officer was going to resign, and an interim successor was set to replace him on 15th, 2015. This had resulted from SeaWorld’s decline in share price by 44% during the 2013/2014 financial year. Furthermore, SeaWorld announced that the company’s net income for the second quarter of 2015 had dropped by 84% as compared to the year before. This saw SeaWorld’s total income drop by 3% during the 2014/2015 financial year as compared to the previous year. The decline in share prices and net income of SeaWorld within two financial years, 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 respectively, saw the number of visitors visiting the company’s parks fall by 100,000, from 6.58 million in 2013/2014 to 6.48 million in 2014/2015. As a result, Blackstone Group, which had purchased the company from Anheuser-Busch InBev, announced that it was planning to sell its stake in SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment to Zhonghong Group.
SeaWorld continued to face an uphill battle in its stock prices ever since the 2013 release of "Blackfish," documentary. This was because the documentary brought to the public the marine park's numerous animal welfare issues which negatively affected the company’s reputation hence leading to a decrease in demand of the company’s shares, hence a drop in share prices. SeaWorld claimed that "Blackfish" documentary had no correct facts about the nature of the business that the company was running. However, recently, the company denied that the "Blackfish" documentary had significantly affected its performance. Instead, it blamed the significant decline in the number of visitors at the parks to bad weather and poorly timed holiday weekends.
However, despite the blame on bad weather and poor timing of holiday weekends at the company’s Parks, the stock chart told a totally different story about SeaWorld’s performance. Before "Blackfish," documentary by the CNN, SeaWorld's stocks were trading at around $40 per share. The "Blackfish," documentary was released by the CNN on 19th July, and immediately after that release, SeaWorld’s stock prices declined sharply and have never recovered completely from that date. In fact, SeaWorld’s stock prices have rarely gone above $20 since August 2014, and statistics shows that the stocks have dropped by 50% compared to the pre-"Blackfish" documentary days.
One exception was in December 2014, when the company’s share prices reached $15.77 and this was the day Jim Atchison, the then SeaWorld’s CEO, stepped down.
SeaWorld announced an end to all orca breeding in March 2017, in an attempt to fix its stock price problem. However, these supposed good news by the company were affected by its staunch refusal to release its remaining orcas.
As expected, investors have shown displeasure by expressing their disapproval from the decline in SeaWorld’s stock prices. The investors argued that SeaWorld and its management had misled them in their investments by providing untrue information concerning the effects of the "Blackfish" documentary on the company’s business performance and visitors’ attendance.