SeaWorld San Diego SeaWorld San Diego News

Jonathan Petersson said:
Now that the end of the breeding season has come to an end, the park has welcomed a couple Emperor Penguin chicks which hopefully are fertile and will hatch relatively soon.
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Do you have any idea how the population is in terms of breeding animals. I know for a while they were worried the population would go under due to the amount of older non-breeding animals.
Jonathan Petersson said:
SeaWorld still wants to bring back polar bears to the San Diego park even though their breeding loan with Pittsburgh was unsuccessful so I am excited to see how that goes.
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They’ve been saying they want to bring Polar Bears back since they first lost them years ago. Also the current Polar Bear exhibit does not current AZA standards. The lack of any substrate, foliage, or general furniture are all issues discussed in the AZA manual. The exhibit, pool, and behind the scenes areas are all way too small. The accommodations for breeding females, are good but not large or complex enough for todays standards. And after the latest inspection fiasco I doubt the AZA would ever allow an animal to enter back into that exhibit. And SeaWorld most likely cannot and will not fix the exhibit to meet standards. Because of the addition of Emperor and Arctic Rescue to the East and South of the wild Arctic area SeaWorld would be forced to a major rework of the entire Wild Arctic area and most likely alter the other nearby attractions. They also had the opportunity to redo the entire Wild Arctic section while they replaced the ride section of the attraction. Instead they kept the animal exhibits open to the public because it’s much easier to replace the Polar Bears with Seals than to tear down and build up an entire new Arctic Section. And yes the staff at the park do say they want Polar Bears back because they were a really nice addition to the park but there’s no way the admin will ever take the steps to getting polar bears back.
Jonathan Petersson said:
Lastly but not least, once the park clears out a virus that is currently affecting all of the former Aquatica fish, a new aquarium might be in development.
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Will it be a new ground up aquarium or a reworking /rethemeing of the old aquarium just changing the layout and placement of the tanks.
 
Other 2023 News (2):

On June 21st, it was reported that the aquarium rehabilitated and released a (0.1) green sea turtle named Georgia back into the wild.

SeaWorld San Diego Releases Rehabilitated Sea Turtle Back To Ocean

On May 27th, the aquarium announced they opened a new children's play area, Rescue Jr., to the public.

Rescue Jr. is now OPEN! Be sure... - SeaWorld San Diego

On May 31st, the aquarium announced that they acquired a (0.1) southern sea otter named Chilly from the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California which is now on exhibit.

We've welcomed a new rescued southern sea otter to Otter Outlook! Meet Chilly | We've got some otter-ly wonderful news – we've welcomed a new rescued southern sea otter to Otter Outlook! Meet Chilly Chilly was rescued in June... | By SeaWorld San Diego | Facebook

On June 22nd, the aquarium announced that a (0.0.1) California sea lion named Crumble was born on June 15th.

We have some incredibly SWEET news to... - SeaWorld San Diego
 
Well, I can't say I'm super enthusiastic (I was dreaming about the return of the manatees or a huge coral reef aquarium). However: Better a new animal exhibit then nothing
 
Here’s more on the attraction:
SeaWorld takes a pause on coasters in favor of a new jellyfish attraction
It will be housed in the old animal connections/Clydesdale building. It will have four species: Moon jellyfish, Pacific Sea Nettle, (warty?) comb jelly, and Upside-down Jellyfish. These species will be spread across a dozen aquariums. The park will also startup a jelly propagation area behind the scenes which will take guided tours.
There’s really nothing big about this besides the fact that this opens up the possibility for new exhibits in the future. However this seems more like an art installation/attraction than an actual educational area. The whole pull of this attraction isn’t really the jellies as animals but more so how the aesthetics of displaying them in different tanks and lights. Hopefully this will open the floodgates for a more impressive aquarium where world of fishes used to be and the long rumored shark reef overhaul.
 
Cat-Man said:
Why did they get rid of the manatees in the first place?
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From what I remember, the US Fish and Wildlife Service who have control of the manatees as an endangered species called for them to be returned to Florida. I think it had to do with the manatees being too distant from Florida to make California a useable rehabilitation site for injured manatees.
 
DavidBrown said:
From what I remember, the US Fish and Wildlife Service who have control of the manatees as an endangered species called for them to be returned to Florida. I think it had to do with the manatees being too distant from Florida to make California a useable rehabilitation site for injured manatees.
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Thanks for your reply David, I hadn’t thought of that. That being said, they have them in Cincinnati don’t they? Where else in america do they have them?

I do understand the logistics though, but there must be some of them which can’t be released and have real value as ambassador animals. For all their faults, I can’t think of an institution more suitable than SeaWorld for having them.
 
Westcoastperson said:
Here’s more on the attraction:
SeaWorld takes a pause on coasters in favor of a new jellyfish attraction
It will be housed in the old animal connections/Clydesdale building. It will have four species: Moon jellyfish, Pacific Sea Nettle, (warty?) comb jelly, and Upside-down Jellyfish. These species will be spread across a dozen aquariums. The park will also startup a jelly propagation area behind the scenes which will take guided tours.
There’s really nothing big about this besides the fact that this opens up the possibility for new exhibits in the future. However this seems more like an art installation/attraction than an actual educational area. The whole pull of this attraction isn’t really the jellies as animals but more so how the aesthetics of displaying them in different tanks and lights. Hopefully this will open the floodgates for a more impressive aquarium where world of fishes used to be and the long rumored shark reef overhaul.
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This looks like an interesting exhibit, although in someways I’m disappointed it’s over the site rather than a single building or area, but like others have said hopefully we see more exhibits in the future. The beauty of seaworld is a balance between rides (which, perhaps to the scorn of some on this forum, I really enjoy and the ones at seaworld are fantastic), and animals. I feel in the last decade or so that’s been skewed too much towards rides, so it would be nice to see the balance restored.
 
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Cat-Man said:
Thanks for your reply David, I hadn’t thought of that. That being said, they have them in Cincinnati don’t they? Where else in america do they have them?

I do understand the logistics though, but there must be some of them which can’t be released and have real value as ambassador animals. For all their faults, I can’t think of an institution more suitable than SeaWorld for having them.
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I've wondered about why they are allowed in Ohio also (Cincinnati and Columbus Zoos), and I don't know the answer. One obvious thing is that Ohio is much closer to Florida than California is, albeit still 1000 miles from native manatee habitat. I think that the manatees ended up at those zoos when the Ohio Sea World closed, so maybe they got grandfathered in to some policies that took place after those manatee exhibits were built. Just guessing about that - maybe somebody else has concrete information.

The only other manatees outside Florida in the U.S. are at the Dallas World Aquarium, and they were sourced from countries outside the USFWS jurisdiction apparently.
 
DavidBrown said:
I've wondered about why they are allowed in Ohio also (Cincinnati and Columbus Zoos), and I don't know the answer. One obvious thing is that Ohio is much closer to Florida than California is, albeit still 1000 miles from native manatee habitat. I think that the manatees ended up at those zoos when the Ohio Sea World closed, so maybe they got grandfathered in to some policies that took place after those manatee exhibits were built. Just guessing about that - maybe somebody else has concrete information.

The only other manatees outside Florida in the U.S. are at the Dallas World Aquarium, and they were sourced from countries outside the USFWS jurisdiction apparently.
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The Ohio facilities were allowed to join the Florida manatee rehabilitation program because at the time the exhibits were constructed, the highest number of people moving to and visiting Florida from out of state were coming from Ohio. The USFWS and Florida DNR wanted rehabilitation facilities in Ohio to act as education facilities to bring awareness to manatees and the issues they face in the wild in Florida for the people who were most likely to move to and or visit Florida and encounter them in the wild.
 
DavidBrown said:
The only other manatees outside Florida in the U.S. are at the Dallas World Aquarium, and they were sourced from countries outside the USFWS jurisdiction apparently.
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I forget where precisely DWA got theirs, but for some reason they're exempt by having Antillean Manatee instead of the Florida Manatee, despite both being the same species. Just one subspecies is native and endangered but the other isn't and thus is unrestricted for whatever reason.
 
Kudu21 said:
The Ohio facilities were allowed to join the Florida manatee rehabilitation program because at the time the exhibits were constructed, the highest number of people moving to and visiting Florida from out of state were coming from Ohio. The USFWS and Florida DNR wanted rehabilitation facilities in Ohio to act as education facilities to bring awareness to manatees and the issues they face in the wild in Florida for the people who were most likely to move to and or visit Florida and encounter them in the wild.
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Interesting; thanks for providing that. A bit odd but there we have it. I do think they should allow unreleasable animals to other institutions, if nothing else as an ambassador. They’re probably the most unique mammal native to the US!

Great Argus said:
I forget where precisely DWA got theirs, but for some reason they're exempt by having Antillean Manatee instead of the Florida Manatee, despite both being the same species. Just one subspecies is native and endangered but the other isn't and thus is unrestricted for whatever reason.
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That makes sense. Thanks. Does anybody know where they sourced them from? I assume they come from similar stock to the manatees in European zoos, but again I’m not precisely sure where these have come from. I understand there is significant demand for space for new Manatees in Europe, so any US institution who wanted them might be able to get them from over here!
 
Cat-Man said:
Interesting; thanks for providing that. A bit odd but there we have it. I do think they should allow unreleasable animals to other institutions, if nothing else as an ambassador. They’re probably the most unique mammal native to the US!



That makes sense. Thanks. Does anybody know where they sourced them from? I assume they come from similar stock to the manatees in European zoos, but again I’m not precisely sure where these have come from. I understand there is significant demand for space for new Manatees in Europe, so any US institution who wanted them might be able to get them from over here!
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She's a rescue from Venezuela. She was found as a young orphan and eventually went to DWA along with another rescued manatee and the veterinarian who raised them both. As I understand it she's very attached to the vet.
 
Thanks, that’s very interesting. Do you happen to know where the other manager came from?
CMTM said:
She's a rescue from Venezuela. She was found as a young orphan and eventually went to DWA along with another rescued manatee and the veterinarian who raised them both. As I understand it she's very attached to the vet.
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