SeaWorld San Diego Orca shows ending, Blue World cancelled

DavidBrown

DavidBrown

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
This article from the LA Times is somewhat muddled, but it seems that Sea World has announced the following:

1. They are ending their orca shows and turning them into conservation "experiences" of some kind.
2. The Blue World project is cancelled.
3. The money that was to be used for Blue World is going to be used for some other kind of attraction which sounds like a roller coaster from the story.

Left unclear is whether orca shows are ending in Orlando and San Antonio and whether orcas are completely being removed from San Diego (it sounds like maybe they are from the context of the story).

SeaWorld to phase out killer whale show - LA Times
 
SeaWorld says they are keeping the orcas, renovating their tanks, and changing the nature of their show.
 
Are they getting rid all the orcas everywhere at each of their parks in entirety, or are they only getting rid of them at sea world san diego, and if they are not getting rid of their orcas at all of their parks, will the exhibits still get improved at all at any of them?

I think that sea world truly does have good intentions, but that it is too late to reverse the way the public sees them.
 
SeaWorld just confirmed that One Ocean in SD will run through 2016 and when 2017 comes around it will be replaced with a non theatrical/informative show. So here's a recap of what was announced for today. San Diego will stop One Ocean, renovate their orca tanks, get two future underwater/animal ride attractions that includes a moving submarine alongside tanks and a jeep ride that take guests under renovated dolphin tanks. Meanwhile San Antonio will get a roller-coaster with 'SeaWorld Rescue' Jetski cards.

Despite their very clear and new announcements, anticaps are still celebrating that SWSD is phasing out their orcas.
 
Technically,the shows aren't even going away. They're being changed to resemble their educational show Killer Whales: Up Close. The shows aren't going,they're changing,and the orcas for sure aren't leaving. As for the rides we're concerned about,concept art has been posted to "Stand With SeaWorld",a fan page. The first two are dark rides,one of them clearly displays a dolphin in the background,which fits in line with SeaWorld's education through entertainment. The other dark ride simply shows a station,however I could easily see it being similar to the penguin ride at Orlando. The last is a SeaWorld rescue team-themed coaster,there are two pictures of this. It seems like SeaWorld is trying very hard to sell their rescue team nowadays.
https://www.facebook.com/standwithseaworld/posts/1683770278506158
 
Shellheart said:
Technically,the shows aren't even going away. They're being changed to resemble their educational show Killer Whales: Up Close. The shows aren't going,they're changing,and the orcas for sure aren't leaving.
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With the increased heat coming from state regulators and legislators and public sentiment tilting against captive orcas seemingly, I would guess that Sea World is probably thinking about what an orca-less future looks like in California at least.
 
DavidBrown said:
With the increased heat coming from state regulators and legislators and public sentiment tilting against captive orcas seemingly, I would guess that Sea World is probably thinking about what an orca-less future looks like in California at least.
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I'm sure it's been considered,however Joel Manby,the CEO,seems very,very determined to keep orcas in California. I can't imagine he'd back down,especially given the new plans.
 
Shellheart said:
I'm sure it's been considered,however Joel Manby,the CEO,seems very,very determined to keep orcas in California. I can't imagine he'd back down,especially given the new plans.
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Are they still planning on upgrading the orca exhibit to give them more space and depth? It sounds like the Blue World initiative is dead and they are basically keeping the status quo for the orca exhibit with the change being a shift to more of a behavioral demonstration than a traditional show.
 
With no guarantee that it can continue keeping orcas in the long term, Seaworld is unlikely to want to spend big bucks renovating the orca enclosures.
 
What is extraordinary is how confusing many of the articles have become, with a distinct lack of clarity about future SeaWorld plans. There has been little to no mention of the $100 million Blue World project and it would appear that in San Diego there will be more informative, conservation-based programs for the orcas beginning in 2017.

I find it interesting that SeaWorld is doggedly hanging onto the idea of Shamu and not simply admitting that phasing out orcas is a long-term possibility. If one looks back to 30 years ago there was at least 30 dolphinariums/whale exhibits just in Britain and now there is zero. At the same time there was a total of 10 such venues in Germany and now there only two. Just about every zoo and aquarium in the western hemisphere has phased out dolphins and whales in comparison to how many establishments kept such species 30 years ago...but SeaWorld is still hanging on to its orcas even with public opinion steadily heading in the opposite direction each year. If the breeding ban remains in place then eventually SeaWorld will have to bow to public pressure and phase out its orcas and it seems that will happen at some point in time.
 
This is a bad precedent for people who enjoy zoos. A couple of articles I've read take some pretty big leaps with the meaning of this decision. One on Huffington Post flat out said something to the effect of this being the moment in history where the public decides that animals belong only in the wild.

I'm not sure that's true, and I frankly don't ever see myself visiting Sea World regardless of this. What alarms me is that radical animal rights groups will run with their success here and turn their cannons on zoos in their next PR campaign. We all know that they'd love nothing more than to shut down any form of wild animal captivity, and now they have their blueprint to implement.

Time will tell when and where this begins, but I'm guessing it will be geared toward elephant and ape management in zoos.
 
From other sources including the official Press release it didn't sound like they mentioned weather the Blue World project is either dead or alive. It is also possible that it may be just cancelled for San Diego because of the restrictions the State has put on them. We could someday see it at San Antonio and Orlando.

As for the rides each park is getting a themed ride to their Sea Rescue program/show. San Antonio is getting the roller coaster and the preliminary designs show the other two parks getting dark rides that appear to be interactive with their animals. It also looks like they will at least be keeping Orcas at San Diego just in a less show-like way and they could see some renovations for the changes to be made still.
 
CuseZoofan said:
From other sources including the official Press release it didn't sound like they mentioned weather the Blue World project is either dead or alive. It is also possible that it may be just cancelled for San Diego because of the restrictions the State has put on them. We could someday see it at San Antonio and Orlando.
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The LA Times stories indicate that Sea World is spending the money that it had budgeted for Blue World on whatever the new ride(s) is/are (which is unclear as there is concept art for at least 3 different rides floating around).

Whatever Sea World has been trying to communicate has gotten garbled beyond apparently the California "theatrical" orca show (their term) will be transformed into an educational presentation. And there are some new rides coming instead of the big new Blue World orca exhibit.
 
Elephant management will defenitely be the next strike. They will talk about things two African importations and disregard the fact that they would of otherwise been killed. Next they will say that in the past elephants did horribly in zoos, and even if they try to do better today "we don't trust past abusive babysitters with our kids". They will use pure propaganda, and if they show pictures of zoos, they will only show San Antonio, and zoos in Kazakhstan and China. They won't talk about giants of the savannah and other great exhibits because it goes against their argument. Then everyone gets this biased opinion crudely hammered into their minds, and over the course of 7 years, elephants eventually fade from captivity. DONE. NEXT. Ok, great apes are intelligent, let's get rid of them! Ok cool, what evidence do we have? I know, let's take all this stuff from great ape houses from the 1940s. Cool! Bam. Great apes are gone from captivity. And it won't stop. What needs to happen, is we need to write a documentary about how zoos and animals THRIVE in captivity, and how things are getting better. And we have to put it out BEFORE peta gets another "blackfish". Otherwise, zoos in the U.S. Will cease, and we will all have to move to other countries to see the zoos there.
 
ZooElephantsMan said:
Elephant management will defenitely be the next strike. They will talk about things two African importations and disregard the fact that they would of otherwise been killed. Next they will say that in the past elephants did horribly in zoos, and even if they try to do better today "we don't trust past abusive babysitters with our kids". They will use pure propaganda, and if they show pictures of zoos, they will only show San Antonio, and zoos in Kazakhstan and China. They won't talk about giants of the savannah and other great exhibits because it goes against their argument. Then everyone gets this biased opinion crudely hammered into their minds, and over the course of 7 years, elephants eventually fade from captivity. DONE. NEXT. Ok, great apes are intelligent, let's get rid of them! Ok cool, what evidence do we have? I know, let's take all this stuff from great ape houses from the 1940s. Cool! Bam. Great apes are gone from captivity. And it won't stop. What needs to happen, is we need to write a documentary about how zoos and animals THRIVE in captivity, and how things are getting better. And we have to put it out BEFORE peta gets another "blackfish". Otherwise, zoos in the U.S. Will cease, and we will all have to move to other countries to see the zoos there.
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Wow - one Sea World Park announces plans to scale back its orca shows and cancel an expanded orca habitat, and from there, it's a clear path to the end of all captive animals in the country. A little bit extreme, don't you think? This specious argument has been raised on this site innumerable times, and it's always the same fearmongering (we can't let PETA "win" on any issue, because it will result in the end of zoos). The argument against the keeping of orcas by Sea World is very different from the argument against the keeping of elephants by U.S. zoos as a whole.
 
ZooElephantsMan said:
Elephant management will defenitely be the next strike. They will talk about things two African importations and disregard the fact that they would of otherwise been killed. Next they will say that in the past elephants did horribly in zoos, and even if they try to do better today "we don't trust past abusive babysitters with our kids". They will use pure propaganda, and if they show pictures of zoos, they will only show San Antonio, and zoos in Kazakhstan and China. They won't talk about giants of the savannah and other great exhibits because it goes against their argument. Then everyone gets this biased opinion crudely hammered into their minds, and over the course of 7 years, elephants eventually fade from captivity. DONE. NEXT. Ok, great apes are intelligent, let's get rid of them! Ok cool, what evidence do we have? I know, let's take all this stuff from great ape houses from the 1940s. Cool! Bam. Great apes are gone from captivity. And it won't stop. What needs to happen, is we need to write a documentary about how zoos and animals THRIVE in captivity, and how things are getting better. And we have to put it out BEFORE peta gets another "blackfish". Otherwise, zoos in the U.S. Will cease, and we will all have to move to other countries to see the zoos there.
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One of the advantages of the republicans (oh how I pine for the moderate republicans like Olympia Snowe) being in power is that this nonsense might be harder for them (peta) to pull off.
 
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