SeaWorld is investigating allegations that one of its employees, under an assumed name, spied on an animal-rights group and tried to incite violence against the theme park.
“The allegations made yesterday against a SeaWorld employee are very concerning,” said SeaWorld Entertainment CEO Joel Manby. “These allegations, if true, are not consistent with the values of the SeaWorld organization and will not be tolerated.”
Manby, in a statement issued Wednesday afternoon, said he and the SeaWorld Board of Directors have launched a probe to be led by outside counsel Ron Olson of Munger, Tolles & Olson.
He said the firm will have “full access to our organization and people.”
Olson, based in Los Angeles, has a long history of representing high-powered corporate clients, including Edison International in the California electricity crisis and Merrill Lynch in the Orange County bankruptcy.
He also represented the National Football League as it fought concussion lawsuits and Tokyo Electric Power Co. regarding liability of claims from the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The theme park employee, who wasn’t named by SeaWorld but was identified as Paul McComb by PETA, has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the findings of the investigation.
“We will take all appropriate actions based on the results of the investigation to ensure that the integrity and values of the SeaWorld organization are upheld,” Manby said.
Thursday morning, the president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals responded to the news.
“SeaWorld is scrambling to distance itself from something that it cannot talk its way out of,” said Ingrid Newkirk, the group’s president and co-founder. “It is already contradicting its earlier statement that it couldn’t comment on its security measures and that it was acting in the face of escalating animal-protection actions”
She further said in a statement:
It cannot escape the fact that the post office box used by McComb was in the name of SeaWorld’s head of security or that McComb appears to have been working with SeaWorld security when he informed the police of PETA’s protest at the Rose Parade and was later arrested and released.
“Suspending” your own agents is an old trick, which usually comes with a backroom deal of compensation and a promise to bring them back when things die down, which is unlikely to be the case with this beleaguered business.
McComb’s actions under an alias and possible illegal filming at the Superpod 3 orca-protection conference last year are also matters for investigation. Furthermore, we do not believe that SeaWorld has limited its espionage efforts to McComb’s activities.
It has hired protesters to attend SeaWorld rallies, and PETA is currently looking at two more men who we believe were SeaWorld agents hired to infiltrate PETA as “volunteers,” and the list may grow.
PETA is also preparing to release the names and photographs of other people it wishes to question with regard to their presence at demonstrations and volunteer activities. SeaWorld could face scrutiny by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and other bodies now, but chances are that the McComb affair is just the tip of the iceberg in SeaWorld’s dirty tricks department.
We are dealing with a SeaWorld infestation, and it is likely to get much uglier.
But Tuesday, when the agitator accusations first emerged, PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo responded to questions about PETA’s own spying.
Another PETA spokeswoman had been quoted as saying that the group had never gone undercover against SeaWorld.
But PETA’s own SeaWorldofHurt site noted several cases of allies documenting mistreatment of orcas or their poor living conditions.
SeaWorld posted: “Dr. Heather Rally, a veterinarian who has experience working with marine mammals, visited SeaWorld San Diego in September and October 2014. Her observations reveal that orcas aren’t the only ones who suffer at SeaWorld—dolphins, walruses, and pilot and beluga whales do, too. Here are her (not so) shocking findings.”
But Guillermo told Times of San Diego: “What PETA does is nothing at all like what SeaWorld has apparently done here. PETA, like all social-justice groups throughout history, works peacefully to document and expose cruel, often illegal, acts and to end them.”
She said SeaWorld’s corporate “espionage campaign” tried to coerce kind people into illegal acts in an attempt “to cover up its wrongdoing and keep us from exposing the miserable lives of the animals it imprisons.”
Guillermo said animal cruelty at SeaWorld is visible to any visitor.
“Dr. Rally saw what any paying member of the public would have seen at SeaWorld that day: dolphins with skin lesions and rake marks on their bodies, an orca floating motionless in the corner of a tank, and a walrus who kept his eyes shut 90 percent of the time.
“As a veterinarian with experience with marine mammals, she was able to take photos of animals who were in poor health in plain view and publicize her findings.”
