Written by Jeff Mackey
If anyone needed a reminder about how horribly the notorious Jambbas Ranch treats animals, a newly released report from a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspection of the Fayetteville, North Carolina–based roadside zoo reveals that the agency has cited the facility yet again for violating the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA).
According to the report, the USDA inspector observed a "very thin" rabbit who was "dehydrated," "reluctant to move," and "too weak to reach [the] tall water can" in the cage. The rabbit also suffered from overgrown nails, ear mites, and inflamed ears, which Jambbas had only "treated" with Vaseline. The inspector also observed an abrasion on one of the rabbit's footpads, which Jambbas had not even noticed, let alone treated—nor had the facility noticed that the animal was dehydrated, even though his or her skin was "tenting" (a loss of elasticity seen in cases of fluid loss).
In 2012, PETA and the Animal Legal Defense Fund joined concerned Fayetteville-area residents in filing a lawsuit challenging the USDA's renewal of Jambbas' license to exhibit animals since applicants must demonstrate AWA compliance. Yet despite this latest violation—and despite additional evidence of AWA noncompliance given to the agency by PETA—the USDA once again renewed Jambbas' license on May 4!
To challenge this latest rubber-stamping of Jambbas' license in the face of a violation found by its own inspector, PETA and the other plaintiffs will be seeking to amend their complaint in the lawsuit against the USDA. In January, a court denied a motion filed by the USDA seeking to dismiss the suit so that the agency could continue with "business as usual"—a business based on animals' abject misery.
PETA won't rest until all the animals at Jambbas Ranch have bright futures, just as Ben the bear now does. Please urge USDA officials to revoke Jambbas' license immediately and offer them the chance to live out their lives with pride and contentment.
Written by Alisa Mullins
It is with deep sadness that we report the passing of Pat Derby, the former animal trainer who saw the error of the entertainment industry's ways and spent the rest of her life helping captive animals by providing them with safe havens at her three spacious Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) sanctuaries in California. Pat died at her home on Friday.
Pat assisted PETA with many of our campaigns, most recently by providing Ben, the bear we pried out of the clutches of the abysmal Jambbas Ranch, with a permanent home. I defy you not to tear up at footage of Ben splashing happily in a pond at a PAWS sanctuary after spending years in a cramped, barren cage:
In 2007, PAWS also opened its gates to Maggie, a wild-caught African elephant who spent 24 years largely confined to a concrete barn at the Alaska Zoo—10 of those years alone after the zoo's other elephant died. Maggie reportedly collapsed twice in one week and had to be hoisted to her feet with the aid of a winch. She was then suspended in a sling to prevent her from collapsing again. After years of pressure from PETA, the zoo finally allowed her to be moved to a more suitable climate and to live in the company of other elephants, and she has been thriving since her move to PAWS.
PAWS is also home to Nicholas and Gypsy, the last two elephants of the 16 the Hawthorn Corporation was forced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to relinquish after PETA filed repeated complaints with the agency about abuse and neglect at Hawthorn. PETA continues to keep up the pressure on Hawthorn, a supplier of animals to circuses, since it still has tigers and other animals in its custody.
On behalf of Ben, Maggie, Nicholas, Gypsy, and so many others, we thank Pat for her lifelong crusade. Pat may be gone, but her spirit lives on—as do the animals—in the heaven that she created here on Earth.
Written by Michelle Kretzer
Update:
We're happy to report a favorable development in this case: A court has denied a motion by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to dismiss the lawsuit brought against the agency by PETA, the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), and two Fayetteville-area residents seeking to overturn the USDA's renewal of Jambbas Ranch Tours' license to continue to operate the wretched roadside zoo that has racked up dozens of violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA).
The ruling comes in the wake of the recent high-profile rescue of Ben the bear, who now resides in a spacious habitat at a sanctuary in California, thanks to the ruling in the earlier lawsuit mentioned below.
PETA's challenge to the licenses will move forward, but the animals at Jambbas have no time to lose—please urge USDA officials to revoke Jambbas' license immediately and offer these animals the chance to live out their lives with the kind of comfort and dignity that Ben now enjoys.
Originally posted on April 19th, 2012:
Citizens of Cumberland County, North Carolina, who are sickened by Jambbas Ranch Tours' pervasive neglect and abuse of animals have joined PETA and the Animal Legal Defense Fund in suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) over its renewal of Jambbas' license despite chronic violations of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA).
The AWA allows an animal exhibitor or dealer to have his or her license renewed only if the person's business operates in accordance with AWA regulations. But the USDA has repeatedly renewed Jambbas' license despite the fact that every single inspection of the roadside zoo between October 2006 and January 2012 resulted in citations for AWA violations including the following:
This is the second pending lawsuit involving Jambbas Ranch. The other suit seeks to have an abused bear named Ben removed from Jambbas and relocated to a sanctuary where PETA has made arrangements for him to live. In this sad video, Ben paces in his barren cage, bites the chain-link fencing, pushes against it, and tries to reach under it—behavior a bear expert has identified as a cry for help:
In asking the USDA not to renew Jambbas' license, PETA also pointed out several violations of the AWA that relate to Ben, including a lack of adequate space, which is likely causing his repetitive, abnormal behavior.
Jambbas is clearly not qualified to possess an AWA license. We will keep you updated as the lawsuit progresses.
Animal advocates have long known the name Jambbas Ranch Tours. The notorious roadside zoo in Fayetteville, North Carolina, has racked up a mountain of citations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its pervasive neglect and abuse of animals. In fact, nearly every single USDA inspection of Jambbas since October 2006 has resulted in citations for the zoo for failing to provide animals with even the minimum care required by the Animal Welfare Act (AWA). And the latest inspection is no exception. Following a PETA complaint, the USDA again performed an unannounced inspection of Jambbas and found the following violations, among others:
The USDA has been formally investigating Jambbas for at least 18 months for the abuse and neglect of animals. The zoo's chronic violations of the AWA disqualify it from having its license to keep and exhibit animals renewed, yet inexplicably, the USDA continues to renew Jambbas' license year after year, which prompted PETA and others to file a lawsuit.
It's time for every one of the hundreds of animals at Jambbas to be retired to sanctuaries, just like Ben, the long-suffering bear who is now relishing his new life at the PAWS Sanctuary. Please urge the USDA to revoke Jambbas' license and let its captive animals finally retire to sanctuaries, where they will be loved and cared for, instead of caged and used for profit.
PETA has submitted a 64-page petition, which includes case studies, photographs, and expert statements, to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) asking the agency to create and apply specific regulations for bears held captive in appalling conditions by exhibitors, dealers, and research facilities. By allowing bears to be kept in squalid cages and concrete pits and denied everything that is natural and important to them, the USDA is clearly failing to ensure anything close to humane treatment of captive bears, in violation of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA).
Last month, PETA successfully used legal action to rescue a bear named Ben, who was kept for six long years at Jambbas Ranch in a cramped cage with a concrete floor. Ben was fed dry dog food once a day and spent most of his waking hours pacing the few square feet allotted to him. Despite Ben's obvious suffering and multiple complaints from PETA and others, USDA inspectors failed to cite Jambbas for violations related to Ben. In state court, however, a judge ruled that the conditions in which he was being kept constituted cruelty to animals, proving that the federal AWA isn't preventing cruelty to captive bears.
While Ben's story has a happy ending, hundreds of other bears will continue to languish in squalid conditions unless the USDA takes action. Roadside zoos like Jambbas and the Cherokee Bear Zoo account for the majority of USDA licensees with captive bears. These shabby facilities keep bears in tiny barren cages or concrete pits with woefully inadequate space, lack of physical or mental stimulation, and inappropriate diets and in conditions that deny the bears any opportunity to engage in natural behavior, such as hibernating and foraging. Because their needs aren't being met, many bears in roadside zoos spend most of their time pacing, cage-biting, and head-butting, which experts agree are signs of distress.
Bears have a natural life span of up to three decades, and some species can have a home range of thousands of miles. According to the International Zoo Yearbook, "[I]t is recognized that bears are extremely difficult and challenging creatures to manage in the captive environment"—just as challenging, according to studies, as primates. For example, in a study of 33 carnivorous species, bears showed the most evidence of stress and psychological dysfunction in captivity. An Oxford University study ultimately concluded that "the keeping of naturally wide-ranging carnivores should be either fundamentally improved or phased out." But the requirements for bears' care currently fall under the AWA's minimum regulations for a wide variety of unspecified species, and the USDA is failing to use these generic regulations to protect bears.
In addition to a specific prohibition on keeping bears in abysmal concrete pit–style enclosures, PETA has proposed regulations that would require that bears be furnished with naturalistic habitats, dens for nesting and hibernation, pools for bathing, enough room to forage and explore, enrichment, and other elements that would improve bears' mental and physical well-being.
Speak up for bears in captivity! Please join PETA in urging the USDA to formulate bear-specific standards to be added to the AWA.
Written by PETA
Our sympathies go out to the family of Kalei Welch, who died in an Illinois hospital after falling ill with E. coli poisoning. Health officials believe that the 5-year-old girl contracted the deadly bacterial infection at a petting zoo at the Hendricks County Fair.
PETA has been warning parents for years about the dangers of petting zoos, which are hotbeds of E. coli. Hundreds of children have been infected after visiting petting zoos, and many have suffered kidney failure, requiring long-term dialysis and multiple blood transfusions.
Infection can spread through direct animal contact or simply by touching the surroundings near an animal exhibit. Hand sanitizer does nothing to prevent the spread of E. coli by inhalation or indirect contact. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as many state departments of health have issued warnings about the health risks of petting zoos.
These displays are bad for animals too. Case in point: North Carolina's Jambbas Ranch is notorious for keeping animals in substandard conditions, including a lone neurotic bear named Ben.
Please ask North Carolina officials to keep people and animals safe by refusing to reissue Jambbas owner James Bass' wildlife-captivity license and endangered-species permit.
Written by Jennifer O'Connor
After years of campaigning by PETA, Zoocheck Canada, and local residents, provincial authorities in Alberta, Canada, have finally ordered a decrepit roadside menagerie called Guzoo Animal Farm to close its doors.
Numerous reports have documented that hundreds of animals—including tigers, cougars, dogs, a lynx, and a baboon—were living in feces-filled cages and cramped pens, denied adequate food, water, and shelter from the elements. "Grossly substandard and filthy," wrote a Calgary zookeeper in one report. "A disgrace to the people of Alberta and those who care about animals," said a retired Toronto zookeeper in another. In 2007, a report documented more than 100 violations of the already minimal provincial standards for zoos.
Animals in other decrepit roadside zoos still need your help—animals like Ben the bear and others at the Jambbas Ranch in North Carolina. Please ask officials to follow Alberta's lead and shut down the menagerie for good.
Bear expert Else Poulsen flew to Fayetteville, North Carolina, to join PETA and concerned area residents in calling on county officials to uphold a local law prohibiting the possession of exotic animals and send a neglected bear named Ben to a sanctuary.
After reviewing footage of Ben's behavior, Poulsen described what Ben was trying to tell us:
Ben is communicating with whomever is on the other side of the fenceline. When he is head butting the fence he is showing that he cannot move forward. He demonstrates that the fence is impervious to his biting and he cannot get out. He demonstrates that he cannot walk forward as he puts his paws under the fence. If Ben had understood that he could get out himself he would be doing these things with greater gusto, but he seems to understand that he/himself cannot do it. … Judging by the bite marks in the fence Ben has tried to appeal to others his wish to get out.
Ben has been kept in substandard, inhumane conditions in a cramped, barren cage at the Jambbas roadside zoo in Fayetteville, North Carolina—for years.
The zoo's owner, James Bass, faces charges for violating the county's exotic-animal ordinances, but after Bass went in front of the commission and asked its members to amend the law in an attempt to exempt him, the commission—without much ado and in a stunning display of favoritism—obliged.
Please ask Cumberland County Commissioners to send this curious and intelligent bear to the roomy and stimulating environment of a sanctuary—PETA has lined one up that is awaiting Ben with open arms!
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
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