SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. has released a statement on December 11 that their CEO James Atchison is leaving the position and the company's current chairman, David D'Alessandro will be the interim CEO beginning January 15, 2015.

Visitors of the known theme park have been dropping low in number ever since recession started for the past 4 quarters of this year. A bad publicity that involved a documentary called Blackfish released last year also didn't help the company in gaining back their lost profits.  The film depicts the company's treatment towards animals may have caused death to some of its trainers.

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The company has been doing their best to gain more visitors after that film was released. They said on December 11 that they will remove an uncertain amount of jobs to cut cost, which will make them save about $50 million a year.

Atchison started working for the company in 2009 as the CEO and president. After stepping down, he won't remain unemployed because he will still work for the company as their vice chairman and will even be nominated to be one of the boards of the company's conservation fund.

D'Alessandro will be its temporary CEO until they have finally hired a new permanent replacement. They also have two new directors, namely former California congresswoman Ellen Tauscher and former advertising executive William Gray, who also works for Blackstone as their senior advisor. Blackstone is an investment firm and one of the shareholders in SeaWorld.

The famous theme park has 11 operating branches all over the United States and its share has gone up to 16 cents in extended trading. The company's share even went high by about 45 cents closing it to $16.09 on December 11. But in the past year, this company that is originally from Orlando, Florida just lost 45% of their shares.

TagsSeaworld, James Achison, Orlando, Florida