It’s been a stormy year for SeaWorld, as attendance and revenue plummeted after last year’s release of the popular documentary Blackfish, which harshly criticizes the company or its treatment of orcas.
The latest sign of big trouble for SeaWorld Entertainment was the recent announcement that current CEO Jim Atchison will be departing the company in January after five years on the job.
Just last week it also came to light that the company’s SeaWorld San Diego park had laid off more than 100 employees – including costumed characters as well as high-level managers – in a cost-cutting move.
The layoffs are part of a larger, company-wide restructuring plan that will reportedly result in more than 300 layoffs throughout the company, which operates marine parks in San Diego, Orlando and San Antonio. “The company continues to advance its previously announced company-wide cost initiative, including its plan to deliver approximately $50 million of annual cost savings by the end of 2015,” a SeaWorld Entertainment statement said.
The company had long been targeted by animal rights groups, but the devastation suffered after the release of Blackfish was eloquently explained by Washington Post writer Terrence McCoy.
“Under normal circumstances, an institution as big and famous as SeaWorld would be impervious to any number of public assaults on its standing. Like Wal-Mart or Comcast or Disneyland, one would assume it could bear any bad press and keep chugging,” McCoy wrote. “But after the release of the documentary Blackfish in the summer of 2013, it became clear to onlookers that these were not normal circumstances and not the usual bad press.”
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