SeaQuest Files For Bankruptcy; Fate Of Woodbridge Location Unknown

WOODBRIDGE, NJ — On Monday, SeaQuest Holdings, LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

With the bankruptcy filing, what will happen now to the Woodbridge Center mall SeaQuest remains unknown. A spokeswoman for the mall did not respond when Patch asked if SeaQuest plans to continue their lease. They rent space on the ground floor of the mall, and first opened there in 2019.

According to their bankruptcy filing, SeaQuest reported less than $1 million in assets and said it was more than $10 million in debt.

The bankruptcy comes after SeaQuest CEO and founder Vince Covino resigned in August. Covino launched SeaQuest because "I was tired of paying $100 a ticket to take my wife and six kids to the zoo or to an aquarium. Thirty minutes later they'd be bored and ready to leave," he told Patch in this 2019 interview when he first opened in Woodbridge. "My kids like to touch and interact with animals. I figured if I could open an aquarium that allows them to do that, they would want to stay for hours. Turns out millions of kids are just like my kids."

Earlier this year, the NJ Department of Environmental Protection put the Woodbridge Center SeaQuest on an indefinite probation. The state did this after more than 100 animals died in the past five years at the Woodbridge SeaQuest.

The probation meant SeaQuest could not acquire any new exotic animals, nor could SeaQuest open any new "please-touch" exhibits, where children and visitors were encouraged to pet exotic animals such as lizards, sloths and chameleons.

In August, NJ Fish & Wildlife warned that if the Woodbridge SeaQuest violated any terms of their probation, they would lose their operating license and be permanently shut down.

PETA, which has long protested SeaQuest, hailed Monday's bankruptcy filing as a win for wild animals.

"SeaQuest’s financial failure offers yet more proof that animal exploitation is a losing business model, as compassionate consumers don’t want to fork over their dollars to look at fish, otters and birds suffering in cramped, filthy enclosures and forced into stressful public encounters," said PETA associate director of captive wildlife Rebecca Smudzinski.

SeaQuest closed four locations in the past two years, in Fort Worth, Texas, Littleton, Colorado, Trumbull, Connecticut and Stonecrest, Georgia.

In 2023, three former Woodbridge SeaQuest employees contacted Patch to allege animals there were not well cared for, including not being given enough water, and were not taken to see a vet quickly enough when they appeared sick. The employees, all of whom no longer work at SeaQuest and said they did not want to be named, said they witnessed multiple animals die on site.

In 2021, an exotic flying squirrel was accidentally crushed to death in a door at the Woodbridge Center SeaQuest.

"PETA is calling on SeaQuest to shut down its remaining locations and surrender the surviving animals to reputable, financially responsible facilities," said Smudzinski this week.

Probation Extended At Woodbridge Mall SeaQuest After More Complaints (August 2024)

NJ SeaQuest Put On Probation After Nearly 100 Animals Died There (July 2024)