In a move to shore up its finances during a pandemic that last month forced it to shut down its 12 theme parks, SeaWorld Entertainment announced Tuesday it is raising $227.5 million through a private offering that it can use to help pay its bills.
While the company reported it had seen record attendance and revenue during January and February of this year, the good news quickly soured the following month when it closed all its parks on March 16 and later furloughed 95 percent of its workers starting the first of this month.
Read more at the link above.
As SeaWorld Parks remain closed because of COVID-19, the company has taken proactive financial steps to protect its customers, employees and animals.
SeaWorld Entertainment has taken financial steps in response to lockdown measures that are still in place accross America. Interim CEO, Marc Swanson, said that the steps they have taken “will provide us with significant financial flexibility and liquidity to operate in this unprecedented and highly uncertain environment.”
Reducing expenditure
Seaworld Entertainment has reduced its executive officers’s base salary by 20% until its theme parks resume normal operations. Furthermore, the company has substantially reduced its marketing and advertising spending.
ORLANDO, Fla. – SeaWorld has named a temporary chief executive officer following the resignation of Sergio D. Rivera, according to the news release.
Rivera, the most recent chief executive officer of SeaWorld Entertainment, Inc. notified the company of his decision to resign last week, days after SeaWorld announced 90% of employees would be furloughed amid closures due to the coronavirus pandemic. Company officials said Rivera also stepped down from his duties as a member of the company’s board of directors.
According to the release, Rivera said his resignation was due to disagreements over the board’s involvement in the decision making at SeaWorld.
Posted on June 24, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
WAV Comment – up to 5 years imprisonment and an unlimited fine – well done Scotland (UK) for sending the message out that animal abuse will not be accepted. Lets hope this policy is adopted in many other places !
Scotland to introduce five year jail term for animal cruelty
Scotland will have the toughest penalties for animal cruelty in the UK – thanks to a new Bill passed in Parliament this week.
MSPs have supported increased penalties for the worst animal cruelty cases.
And Finn’s Law will also give new legal protections for service animals such as police dogs and horses, removing a legal defence of self-defence for attacks on service animals in the course of their duties.
The Animals and Wildlife (Scotland) Bill will increase the maximum penalty for the worst animal cruelty crimes to five years imprisonment and an unlimited fine.
Animal welfare enforcement agencies will also be given innovative new powers, allowing animals taken into their care to be quickly rehomed – without the need for a court order.
Mairi Gougeon, Rural Affairs Minister, said: “This Bill is an important milestone in Scotland’s long tradition of protecting our animals and wildlife.
“The increased maximum available penalties reflect the seriousness of some of the very cruel crimes seen against domestic and wild animals, although these cases are, thankfully, rare.
“Finn’s Law, named after a police dog brutally injured in the course of its duties, recognises the important role service animals play in protecting us in sometimes very difficult circumstances.
“The Bill also provides new powers, described as ‘transformative’ by the SSPCA, that will allow animal welfare enforcement agencies to quickly rehome animals in their care.”
The Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals welcomed the government’s decision.
Scotland’s animal welfare charity, which is reponsible for investigating animal cruelty and rehoming animals seized on welfare grounds, said the law will be game-changing for both animals and the organisation.
Posted on June 24, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
For a good start to the day!
After the coronavirus outbreaks in Dutch mink farms, all of this type of farm in the country should, according to the will of Parliament, be closed by the end of the year.
A corresponding proposal from the Social Democrats and the Party for Animals was passed yesterday.
The Parliament also called on the government to ban the breeding of animals “susceptible” to the coronavirus.
The Dutch authorities had more than 1,500 minks killed in the past few weeks after the virus appeared in nine farms. At least two employees of the farms contracted the pathogen.
The authorities assume that the virus has been transmitted from the mink to the employees.
According to the animal welfare organization Humane Society International, there are currently 128 mink farms in the Netherlands.
The breeding of mink fur was fiercely controversial in the country even before the virus broke out.
My comment…And since we have failed miserably as a species, we would like to thank the pandemics for intervening and perhaps doing what we are currently not able to do – namely abolish fur farms.
It would be optimal to abolish the torture farms of ALL breeding animals, and the current mass infections in slaughterhouses can be a good start in this direction.
Over the years we have learned to be patient and therefore we look forward to small successes too.
Posted on June 23, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
An article by Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd
Three days ago, Regan Russell (65) was murdered by a cold-blooded monster devoid of empathy and compassion.
She was deliberately run down by a truck driver. His cargo was pigs stuffed into the truck in over-heated conditions and extremely stressed from thirst.
For a few moments, a compassionate woman named Regan Russell attempted to alleviate both thirst and stress by bringing water to the captives through the narrow slits in the side of the truck.
Her kindness was rewarded with a death sentence callously delivered by the driver of the truck. Some people have said that the driver was just doing his job.
I don’t buy it.
He was aware of the protests. He could have given a warning, he could have stopped to allow the protesters to give water to the pigs. He could have driven cautiously slow. Instead, he slowed down and suddenly sped up. The fact is that he was negligent.
The fact is that a woman is dead and he killed her and he should be charged with vehicular homicide.
Posted on June 23, 2020 by Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)
These are incredible scenes that passersby happened to document in front of a Swiss slaughterhouse last Friday.
When unloading a slaughter transporter, a cattle panicked in such a way that it tried to save its life by leaping over the gang of an animal transporter.
Tilda-the freedom fighter, trying to escape
Animal transport is pure stress for cattle, but also pigs, horses, sheep, and other animals for slaughter.
Blood, excrement, the desperate screams of their peers, the unfamiliar surroundings put the animals in mortal fear.
The reactions to it are different: some literally roar their fear out of the lungs, others are introverted and try to hide.
A fighter one tried to escape on Friday.
The horrified passers-by were able to capture the death-defying jump from a height of several meters and the subsequent escape across the grounds in photographs and films.
In horror, they contacted the Papillon sanctuary, described what had happened, and asked for advice.
We from Papillon Sanctuary immediately asked for a friend’s grace yard for cows, the Villa Kuhnterbunt by Bea Gutzwiller,and decided to rescue the refugee freedom fighter together.
To our astonishment, the head of the slaughterhouse and his coworkers were happy, even asked where she was going and a randomly present craftsman benevolently gave the passer-by a 20-franc note as a reward for the rescue (!!!)
And I mean…Tilda will definitely get a sponsor. Many animals in many other countries have that.
What is difficult to find in many other countries is the courage and the intelligent decision like that of the Swiss witnesses to inform a sanctuary and not the hunter to shoot the animal directly “for safety reasons”!
That would have been the case in Germany !!
Many factors play a role in how develops a society’s behavior towards animals.
It is the education from home, from school, the state animal welfare, and last but not least the financial situation of a country that decides for a good or bad coexistence between humans and animals.
We thank all rescuers of Tilda and we wish her a good and long life in her new home
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