Cedar Fair responds to Q allegations over separation of former COO Jack Falfas

Tekwardo said:
Because he was JUST THERE WEDNESDAY!!!!

LOL - Fair enough, walked into that one. It's starting to look like the bat-cave at the front entrance with signs and labels and arrows. Where's the sense of adventure and exploration.

Jeff said:

I guess I'm focusing on legal decisions that SWP has made.

For example.... When they had the death of Dawn, very tragic no denying it. However instead of seeking legal advice, the President of the parks went out as a spokesman and immediately pulled all trainers from the water with the whales in all parks instead of treating as an issue with one whale and one trainer. As a result of that decision, they were forced to suspend waterwork until such time as they could show that they had changed something, we're still waiting for that day.

I thought that I read somewhere that all Sea World trainers returned to the water.

Trainers are back in the water, but only in the "backstage" pools and not for the shows.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-seaworld-trainers-water-...6999.story

maXairMike said:
Trainers are back in the water, but only in the "backstage" pools and not for the shows.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-seaworld-trainers-water-...6999.story

Read again.... SeaWorld prepares.

I.e. they're back in the water to start the progress. No one said to what depth they were in the water, but they can now be there with the whales, even if it is just with their feet in the water. These are wild animals and are the kings of their man-made environments. No matter how domesticated they may seem, as they proved last year, wild instincts can take over faster than you would expect if the trainers don't recognize or know the signs. You don't just drop back into an orca tank after being out of them for almost a year. You don't have to be a marine biologist to know that you can't treat this kind of thing trivially. While it was an unfortunate and isolated incident, perhaps there were things they had overlooked in orca communication as a result of becoming accustomed to the domesticated side that displayed itself so much of the time?

You are trivializing the nature of what went on and what needed to be looked at in relation to the incident. While it is the trainers' choice to get involved to that point, if there is reason to believe there may be danger beyond what they already know, they have a responsibility to protect their trainers. They also have the ongoing investigation to contend with. It is highly doubtful trainers will be in the water during shows until that investigation has ended.

I don't see any correlation at all of how that relates to a company known for the kind of screws ups, nepotism, micromanagement and general ridiculousness that Cedar Fair has come to be.

And honestly, what did you expect SeaWorld to do? Pretend nothing happened? That wouldn't exactly set a great precedent if there was another accident, and would invite OSHA to camp out at the parks. Still has zero correlation to Cedar Fair, whose board apparently lied about the separation of its COO.

I say "apparently" because there are still some bits left out, but if Jack left on his own terms, why would he seek arbitration in the first place?

Interesting... time will tell I suppose. As for an alternative course of action, perhaps limiting or adjusting access to the whale that caused the issue, not expanding it to include all whales at all parks. For the record I never accused SWP of nepotism or micromanagement, I simply noted they were making bad decisions and asleep at the wheel. No intent to trivialize what happened, just suggesting they didn't handle it like a major corporation should have handled it, similar to the mistakes CF is making.

And I'm saying it's not similar at all. There's a pattern of mismanagement and there's one decision you don't agree with.

I absolutely give you that... they are no where near the level of insanity that it appears CF is these days. However, I guess being local I see more stories than make it farther than the Orlando Sentinel that has me fearing that SWP are slipping from a once proud operation under Busch into an unknown....

CPJ, I am sure I don't have to remind you that in a relatively short period of time, Sea World Parks have gone from being a lauded entity within the Anheuser-Busch company to an unwanted entity within InBev to a quasi-independent entity under Blackstone. Even though I'm pretty sure nobody ever did a major "housecleaning" of key personnel in those parks, the rapid changes in corporate culture and budget are going to have a noticeable effect. Now that things have settled down for that organization, I expect we will see Sea World's decision making start to look a bit more familiar.

Incidentally, I think their response to Dawn Brancheau's* death was actually quite reasonable from a risk management perspective, especially given the certainty that OSHA was going to become involved. To OSHA there is no such thing as an isolated incident.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

*I hope I got that right; I didn't look it up...

--DCAjr

The iceberg analogy comes to mind.

There is that; the other thing is that so far as OSHA is concerned, if you have an incident, then obviously there is a hazard, and that hazard...no matter how unlikely the circumstances that conspired to cause the incident...has to be dealt with. At the time of the incident, I made some comparisons where I considered orcas as if they were heavy machinery; I would not be surprised if OSHA considers them in much the same way.

Except that you can't "lock out" an orca.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Well, you can, but it can get a bit messy. And the orca usually doesn't like it very much. ;)

The way they run the SeaWorld Parks nowadays is just like Cedar Fair. I worked at SeaWorld Orlando and wow they slashed our budget, Park moral is down to the worst and they are just not investing into the parks as they used too. Yes I know some parks are getting new additions I am talking about infrastructure and stuff most GP will never see.