SeaWorld accused of sending employee to infiltrate animal rights protests

SeaWorld has been accused of sending an employee to infiltrate animal rights protests against the company’s controversial treatment of killer whales.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) on Tuesday claimed that Thomas Jones, an activist who had urged other protesters to “burn it [SeaWorld] to the ground”, is in fact Paul McComb, an employee of the aquatic theme park.

Peta released pictures of Jones and McComb, a SeaWorld human resources worker, which appear to show the same man. McComb’s résumé states that he has worked at SeaWorld, which has 11 parks across the US, since April 2010.

Jones has been involved in Peta protests against SeaWorld for several years, and was arrested alongside other activists in 2014. Jones also allegedly used Facebook and Twitter to incite other activists to “get a little aggressive” and “drain the new tanks at #SeaWorld”.

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In the run-up to a July 2014 protest, Jones urged other activists: “Grab your pitch forks and torches. Time to take down SeaWorld.”

SeaWorld refused to deny that McComb and Jones are the same person, or that it sent him to infiltrate the protesters.

In a statement, Fred Jacobs, SeaWorld’s vice-president of corporate communications, said: “We are focused on the safety of our team members, guests and animals and beyond that we do not comment on our security operations. This is a responsibility that we take very seriously, especially as animal rights groups have become increasingly extreme in their rhetoric and tactics.”

Jacobs refused to answer any questions from the Guardian, but went on to point out: “Peta itself actively recruits animal rights activists to gain employment at companies like SeaWorld, as this job posting demonstrates. Safety is our top priority, and we will not waiver from that commitment.”

McComb did not respond to calls or emails on Tuesday.

Lisa Lange, senior vice-president at Peta, said she was certain that McComb and Jones were the same person, and accused SeaWorld of running a “corporate espionage campaign”.

Lange said she became suspicious of Jones when she was arrested alongside him at the 2014 Rose Parade in Pasadena, California, but he was released without charge and his name did not appear on arrest sheets.

“I was one of the protesters at the Rose Parade, and I was arrested with him, but when we were let out of jail he was gone,” she told the Guardian. “We were waiting to make sure we got everybody out, and kept asking ‘Where is he? Where is he?’. He finally texted to say he was already at home. He said he forgot his ID so the police just let him out. Now, that would never happen.”

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A Pasadena police spokesman told Bloomberg that there were no records of a Thomas Jones or Paul McComb being arrested that day, despite a photo showing Jones being handcuffed.

Lange said she and other activists then searched through Jones’s Facebook and Twitter feeds, and found posts that appeared to incite other activists to carry out “illegal violent things” which goes against Peta’s principles. “It just smelled bad,” she said.

Further investigation by Peta revealed that an address used by Jones to join one of its groups was a post office box registered to Richard Marcelino, director of security at SeaWorld San Diego.

Lange accused SeaWorld of resorting to dirty tricks and corporate espionage to try and impede Peta’s exposure of alleged ill-treatment of orca whales. “SeaWorld knows that the public is rejecting its cruel orca prisons and is so desperate that it created a corporate espionage campaign,” she said. “Instead of creating a dirty tricks department, SeaWorld should put its resources into releasing the orcas into coastal sanctuaries.”

SeaWorld has faced repeated criticism of its treatment of whales trained to perform tricks to entertain guests highlighted by the 2013 documentary Black Fish. One Direction’s Harry Styles this week became the latest celebrity to criticise SeaWorld.