SeaWorld has been butt hurting ever since the 2013 documentary Blackfish started a (well-deserved) backlash against the park. Attendance has declined by 5%, stock prices have declined almost 50% in the past 12 months, and SeaWorld announced it’s suffered an overall $15.9 million loss. To help stop the company’s freefall, it announced today it will build significantly larger tanks at its three marine parks, beginning with San Diego.
The new initiative, which it has dubbed Blue World Project, is expected to cost the company several hundred million dollars across its three parks in San Diego, Orlando and San Antonio, said SeaWorld CEO Jim Atchison.
“We will spend more building these habitats than we have spent building some of our parks,” he said.
The first of the new environments will be built at SeaWorld San Diego, where the killer whale habitat will have a total water volume of 10 million gallons, nearly double the current size. A new, enlarged tank, which will be located where the current Shamu underwater viewing pool is, will have a maximum depth of 50 feet, a surface area of nearly 1.5 acres and is planned to be more than 350 feet in length. The new environment will also have viewing windows below water level exceeding 40 feet in height.
“Through up-close and personal encounters, the new environment will transform how visitors experience killer whales,” Atchison said.
Of course, a bigger prison is still a prison, as PETA Foundation Director of Animal Law Jared Goodman points out:
“This is a desperate drop-in-the-bucket move to try to turn back the hands of time at a time when people understand the suffering of captive orcas, and it will not save the company,” said PETA Foundation Director of Animal Law Jared Goodman. “What could save it would be the recognition that it needs not to make larger tanks but to turn the orcas out in seaside sanctuaries so that they can feel and experience the ocean again, hear their families, and one day be reunited with them.”
Here, here.
And if you’ve STILL never seen Blackfish, I encourage you to watch it here. It’s completely traumatizing and worth every second of your time.
(via UT San Diego)
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