Update: On the heels of the deaths of four animals at SeaWorld San Antonio in less than a year, SeaWorld‘s chief parks operations officer is, er, retiring; the chief zoological officer is being given the new title of “zoological director emeritus” (whatever that means); and the SeaWorld San Antonio park director is leaving.
Executive shake-ups at SeaWorld are getting to be business as usual—this is the sixth such management shuffle in a little over a year. How can SeaWorld execs still not accept that all the “house cleaning” in the world won’t change the fact that a business model based on abusing captive marine mammals is forever dead?
Originally posted December 4, 2015:
Fred Jacobs worked for SeaWorld for 25 years. Not anymore. The senior vice president of corporate communications, the company’s primary spokesperson, is resigning. Not retiring, resigning. He wouldn’t say why.
Jacobs is the third high-ranking SeaWorld executive to abandon ship in the past year. President and CEO Jim Atchison resigned in January amid widespread layoffs, a 50 percent decline in stock price, and falling attendance. In June, CFO James Heaney resigned after just three and a half years with the company. He had started in 2012, the year before the release of Blackfish.
Who’ll be the next to go? If SeaWorld has learned anything, it should be the orcas.
