I think that's a double edged sword.
If they're transparent that it's animals, they'll be accused of pandering to the likes of JFC. Probably accused of going woke or some other pseudo-political flavour of the month.
Have a look at the backlash Dreamworld received when they announced the changes to tiger island.
Put simply, they're damned in they do, and damned if they don't. Don't get me wrong - I like the transparency - and Dreamworld has been doing more 'heart on their sleeve' comms lately while Village continues to persist with 'pay no attention to the man behind the curtain', but in this one specific case at Sea World, I think being vague about their reasons, even if a few folk bemoan the loss without knowing the reasons why, it's probably better than the backlash they'd receive if they were upfront about it.