Sea World announces it’s replacing the leadership of its San Antonio park, along with four others.
SAN ANTONIO — SeaWorld Entertainment shook up the management teams at five of its 11 theme parks Friday, ousting Dan Decker as president of the San Antonio park after a turbulent year of falling attendance and the deaths of four mammals.
Carl Lum, who’s been with SeaWorld Entertainment since 1999, will replace Decker, according to a news release. Decker, who last year received the “Tall in Texas” award from the Texas Travel Industry Association, is “leaving the company” immediately, according to the statement.
SeaWorld, based in Orlando, Florida, did not elaborate on Decker’s departure. Company spokeswoman Becca Bides declined to comment on the changes.
Lum, who was most recently president of SeaWorld’s Busch Gardens Williamsburg and Water Country USA parks, will step in to run the SeaWorld and Aquatica parks in San Antonio, leaving his former job at both parks vacant.
SeaWorld Entertainment CEO Joel Manby, who was hired in April, also reshuffled management at its SeaWorld and Aquatica parks in San Diego, naming a new president: Marilyn Hannes, who was formerly the company’s vice president of global sales. The former president, John Reilly, has been promoted to chief parks operations officer.
The company also said it was forming a resort development group to take charge of an effort it announced in November to build resorts near its parks in San Antonio, San Diego and Orlando.
SeaWorld has been the target of intense criticism since 2010, when trainer Dawn Brancheau was killed by orca Tilikum at the Orlando park. That incident was a theme of the 2013 documentary “Blackfish,” which criticized the company’s treatment of killer whales and suggested that orcas become aggressive when held in captivity.
Manby replaced former CEO Jim Atchison, who resigned in December 2014 amid a storm of negative publicity following the film’s release.
Several animals have died at SeaWorld San Antonio since last summer, including a 12-year-old Pacific white-sided dolphin named Dart earlier this month. Killer whale Unna died in December from a bacterial infection, and a 2-year-old beluga whale named Stella died in November after being treated for gastrointestinal problems. A newborn beluga died in July after being born prematurely.
“It has been a difficult time for our San Antonio team, with several other recent deaths,” SeaWorld said in Feb. 6 blog post the day after Dart’s death. “While there are no apparent connections between these deaths, our veterinarians will be conducting a thorough review of all the cases as they work through the postmortem examination process.”
SeaWorld announced last fall that attendance was down at its parks in San Antonio and San Diego. A few weeks later, Manby revealed a plan to overhaul its public image by touting its animal rescue programs and to build up its parks with new rides and resorts.
The company plans to revamp its killer whale shows at its San Diego park next year in response to customer feedback. The new show will display the orcas in “natural settings” with a strong conservation message, Manby said last f all. No changes are planned for killer whale shows at the San Antonio or Orlando parks.
Last month, SeaWorld stopped allowing guests to swim next to beluga whales at the Orlando park but continued to offer the experience in San Antonio and San Diego.
Dart’s death came a few months before SeaWorld San Antonio plans to open its Discovery Point expansion, with a new habitat for bottlenose dolphins that will be about twice the size of the park’s previous one.
Guests will be able to pay extra to swim with the dolphins for about a half-hour and take photographs.