SeaWorld, in a move to rebuild its brand and combat declining attendance, will phase out its traditional Shamu show in San Diego and replace it with one that is less about tricks and more about orcas’ natural behaviors in the wild.

Next year will be the last for the theatrical performances and coming in 2017 will be what SeaWorld Entertainment describes as an entirely new orca experience, designed to take place in a more natural setting. The announcement, made during a Monday morning presentation by senior SeaWorld executives, is part of a multi-pronged effort by the Orlando-based company to refocus the public’s attention on its conservation efforts while also growing revenues and stabilizing the business.

CEO Joel Manby, who joined the company in March, was short on specifics as to what the new orca shows will entail. He did stress, however, that the planned overhaul was not conceived as a way to appease its critics.

“We start everything by listening to our guests and evolving our shows to what we’re hearing, and so far that’s what we’ve been hearing in California, they want experiences that are more natural and experiences that look more natural in the environment,” said Manby. “But it’s not universal across our properties.”


In its bid to boost attendance, which in San Diego plunged 17 percent last year, the company said Monday it will bring a new, “very marketable” attraction to the Mission Bay park, although no details were offered.

The new attraction will mean shelving, at least in the short term, a $100 million plan to nearly double the killer whale tanks at the San Diego park. Manby said the company will redeploy one-third to one-half of the $100 million for the new attraction.

“We haven’t had a good attraction there in a while,” he said of SeaWorld San Diego.

The move comes amid efforts at both the state and federal level to clamp down on SeaWorld by ending the captive breeding of orcas. SeaWorld has already vowed to fight a recent ruling by the California Coastal Commission to bar it from breeding its orcas as a condition of moving forward with the tank expansion project.


On Friday, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, said he planned to introduce federal legislation that would prohibit the breeding of captive orcas, end the capture of wild orcas and stop the import and export of the killer whales.

“We know, with the regulatory environment out there with orcas and what’s happened in California with the reputation, we’d be foolish if we didn’t look at options,” Manby said. “We’re not comfortable putting $100 million into a market when there are regulatory questions. Until that whole issue settles, then we’ll make a decision at that time.”

As SeaWorld Entertainment moves toward revamping the iconic Shamu show, it’s unclear whether its other two namesake parks, in Orlando and San Antonio, will follow suit.

Theme park consultant Dennis Speigel said he believes it’s inevitable.


“You can’t do it at one park and not do it at the other parks,” said Speigel, president of Ohio-based International Theme Park Services, Inc. “That’s not the way our industry operates.”

In totality, Speigel said SeaWorld’s presentation amounted to “getting back to basics” under new management. “They’re going to listen to their guests and continue to react to guests, and they’re not going to overreact to antagonists.”

SeaWorld parks, most notably the one in San Diego, have been seeing declines in attendance over the last year following the 2013 release of the critical documentary, “Blackfish,” which has aired repeatedly on CNN and brought negative publicity to SeaWorld. The company has fought back with a prolonged media campaign defending what it says are the parks’ humane practices, and that effort will continue, SeaWorld said Monday.

× SeaWorld San Diego’s signature killer whale show will be phased out in 2016.


“I’m a little surprised that they were open to pulling the plug on the orca show, but I think it’s smart and I think it shows that the new management team is willing to put everything on the table and tackle some of the taboos that the prior team was unwilling to address,” said James Hardiman, an analyst who covers SeaWorld for Wedbush Securities.

The move, though, is not likely to silence its critics who still want to see an end to captive breeding. Across the three SeaWorld parks, there are 24 orcas, 11 of them in San Diego.

“The decision by SeaWorld to phase out killer whale shows in San Diego is a welcome step along the path towards ending the captivity of these magnificent creatures,” said Schiff. “Much more needs to be done, however, and I would urge the company to curtail the breeding of their orcas and partner in the creation of ocean sanctuaries. The fact still remains that as long as SeaWorld holds orcas in captivity, the physical and psychological problems associated with their captivity will persist.”

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, SeaWorld’s most persistent critic, repeated its call for an end to the breeding of orcas in captitivity and urged the parks to build sea sanctuaries for the marine mammals.


“An end to SeaWorld’s tawdry circus-style shows is inevitable and necessary, but it’s captivity that denies these far-ranging orcas everything that is natural and important to them.” said PETA Foundation Director of Animal Law Jared Goodman.

Some visitors to SeaWorld San Diego said they would be upset if the park eliminated all orca shows. But a toned-down show might meet with less resistance.

Christine Saponara, 35, a city planner from Los Angeles, arrived at SeaWorld late Monday morning and expressed relief that SeaWorld was backing away from its traditional orca shows, adding that there are too many signs that killer whales are both highly intelligent and are suffering in captivity. She held out hope that SeaWorld would come up with a way to show orcas in a more natural environment.

“It’s a good thing,” she said. “Maybe we can see things in a more natural way.”


SeaWorld announcement

Key to the SeaWorld mission going forward, company executives said, will be reminding visitors to its marine parks of its longstanding efforts to rescue injured and stranded animals. Toward that end, the parks will work more with public schools; the company will renew its Saturday morning TV show, “Sea Rescue,” and develop a possible new rescue-themed ride that would mimic the work of its real-life rescue teams, the company said.

SeaWorld also wants to focus more on transforming its theme parks into resort destinations, beginning with a partnership with San Diego-based Evans hotels to develop a SeaWorld-branded hotel on existing land already leased from the city of San Diego by SeaWorld.

The coming changes follow a modest turnaround in the company’s financials, with earnings during the third quarter rising 12 percent, while revenues were largely flat. Companywide, attendance dropped 4 percent last year and .4 percent for the quarter ending Sept. 30, a drop largely due to much steeper declines at the San Diego and Texas parks.

The company’s planned transition to a much different killer whale show marks yet another milestone in the Shamu stadium performances, which changed significantly following the 2010 death of Dawn Brancheau, a trainer at the Orlando park who was drowned by a 12,000-pound orca during a performance. Since then, trainers never returned to the water for the parks’ iconic Shamu shows despite a four-year battle waged by the company to overturn federal citations and fines stemming from Brancheau’s death.