SeaQuest and Animal Neglect
Eagle time: May 1, 2018
Animal neglect is a major problem in the United States, so why would anyone support a company accused of it?
SeaQuest is advertised as an interactive aquarium that is coming to Palladio on Broadstone this fall. Here, you can snorkel with stingrays, explore exhibits from around the world, and watch hundreds of species on display.
However, this corporation is associated with several controversial accusations. In 2016, a former employee at the Las Vegas location accused SeaQuest of staff constantly fluctuating the pH levels of the aquarium tanks. Fox 5 in Las Vegas wrote, “…leading to the deaths of dozens of animals, including but not limited to ‘an entire tank of eels’ and ‘eleven stingrays in one night.’” A former employee claims the aquarium sustained many animal deaths before the location even opened to the public.
The concerns went beyond Las Vegas. OregonLive.com claims that 200 animals died in at the Portland aquarium run by the SeaQuest CEO, Vince Covino, after the publication requested the death-log. That aquarium is now closed. Then again in 2016, Covino’s brother, Ammon Covino, served eight months in federal prison in 2013 for illegally harvesting fish for their aquarium in Boise, Idaho.
Not all members of the Folsom community are excited to see the new aquarium in town.“I think our community deserves better than to have a place that has been cruel to animals; it doesn’t represent us well,” said Hannah Karsting, an advocate for anti-animal violence. Miranda Ayad, the AP Environmental Science teacher at Vista Del Lago, had a strong opinion on this issue also. “It seems like the people who are owning this company don’t necessarily have the best practices from what I can tell,” said Ayad. “I understand the idea behind it, but it seems like maybe this company has shown in the past that they don’t use the best practices.”
An aquarium coming to Folsom will be an exciting addition to the Palladio and create new jobs, but will it come at a high cost for wildlife?
Avi Krishna • Aug 23, 2018 at 10:21 pm
So basically you say that SeaQuest has caused problems in cities; dead animals cause by fluctuating sea animals. For sake of argument, let’s assume all of this happened. Those against SeaQuest seem to assume that cited malpractice will continue. It’s kind of hard to accept this premise, for a few reasons. Incidents cited by this article have all taken place in big cities (Portland, Las Vegas) – meaning that there was probably a lack of scrutiny for the aquarium. If SeaQuest would be a “exciting addition” then it would probably be audited a lot better, considering Folsom is a pretty small town (80,000 people). This would mean that there would probably be less deaths – if any. Let’s move on. Those cited assume that all problems with the aquarium are intentional, or due to excessive neglect. That’s probably not the case, SeaQuest probably doesn’t want animals to die, its probably just a by-product of being in the industry. Sea animal in are out of habitat, some may not survive. Now of course its probably not a coincidence that 11 stingrays died in one night (if that happened) but even if so it was probably unintentional, most likely being an accident. High pH levels don’t have a due date for killing animals, they would slow kill them at different times. Finally, even if all these bad things are bound to continue, we’d take a look at the pros and cons. You mentioned job increase, this is a guaranteed offshoot, but something that would also probably occur is economic growth. The SeaQuest aquarium, with its snorkeling and other various activities, would probably act like the Golden One stadium (on a smaller scale) for Folsom.