After inspectors found animals kept in appalling conditions without proper care, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) cited two disreputable roadside zoos in North Carolina for violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA). PETA keeps these two hellholes constantly in our sights and had just filed a complaint about Jambbas Ranch Tours before the inspection. 

Jambbas Ranch Tours

A USDA visit to Jambbas Ranch Tours last month following a PETA complaint led to a citation for AWA violations after inspectors discovered a thin elderly llama who had a "thick creamy discharge" oozing from an eye socket (the eye "has been gone for some years"). As PETA had told the USDA, the llama also appeared to be suffering from diarrhea—the animal had a large area of what appeared to be dried feces on the back legs but was given no medical treatment for these conditions.

The inspector also observed a raccoon whose tail and part of whose hindquarters showed complete hair loss, as PETA had reported. The animal was being given an ineffective flea- and tick-control medication, which wasn't prescribed by a vet as required by law. Immediate veterinary care was ordered to treat the raccoon's condition.

Cherokee Bear Zoo

An inspection of the Cherokee Bear Zoo last month resulted in a repeat citation for failure to feed a young tiger cub a healthy, edible, and contaminant-free diet. The cub is described as "small and underweight for its age. The coat looks dull, dry, and brittle."

The shabby animal prison (one of three around Cherokee, North Carolina) also received a citation for failure to vaccinate the same tiger cub. The operators were warned of the need to correct this failure "from this day forward."

Pathetic Prisons

Roadside zoos range from small menageries to large compounds—but they are all unhealthy environments for animals. The owners' focus is on their customers' desires, not the animals' needs, so neglect and abuse are common.

How You Can Help These Animals

These cruel operations stay in business only because people patronize them, so please never visit a roadside zoo, and encourage your family and friends to stay away too.

It's starting to feel like déjà vu: PETA has once again filed formal complaints with the federal government about the abuse of animals in laboratories at the University of Colorado–Denver (CU). Through a state open-records request, PETA has just learned that the same neglect and incompetence that we documented there in a 2007 investigation are still occurring.

The records show that during just the past two years, at least 60 animal welfare incidents—dozens of which may constitute violations of federal law and guidelines—have occurred, including the following:

• A worker broke a rabbit's back as the rabbit struggled against the worker's restraint. The paralyzed animal was still used in an experiment before she was finally killed.
• Experimenters induced cancer in animals and then ineptly cut off the resulting tumors, leaving the animals—who were given no pain relief—with large, gaping wounds.
• Live mice and rats were found in a freezer where dead animals were discarded.
• Twenty guinea pigs died or were killed after a worker injected them with an antibiotic intended for rats.
• A careless employee threw a box of live animals into the trash, leaving the animals to die slowly.

Based on PETA's undercover investigation, in 2007, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cited CU for serious violations of the Animal Welfare Act and also issued the university an official warning letting it know that it would be fined $10,000 per incident if it were found violating the law again. It's time for the government to follow through on that warning and stop CU's abuses for good.

How You Can Help  

Please ask the federal government to stop funding cruel animal experiments and to put your tax dollars toward modern, humane non-animal research methods.

Notorious animal abuser Doug Terranova may not work for peanuts, but the $25,000 fine that he was recently slapped with by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for violating the federal Animal Welfare Act has to have put a dent in his bank account.

Terranova's Sordid History

PETA has been keeping tabs on Terranova—who rents animals to circuses, fairs, TV shows, and movies like Spy Kids 2 and Rushmore—for years and has filed multiple complaints about his careless handling of elephants and tigers.

In one incident, an elephant named Kamba, whom Terranova had rented to a circus in Oklahoma, escaped and ran onto the highway, where she was hit by a vehicle and sustained several injuries, including a fractured carpal bone, a broken tusk, and numerous abrasions. The USDA confiscated a tiger cub from Terranova after two other tiger cubs died in his care at the Iowa State Fair.

The USDA has stipulated that when Terranova's license comes up for renewal, it will be renewed only if he no longer owns, handles, or exhibits elephants. In the meantime, Terranova is still on the road and will be performing with the Shrine Circus.

How You Can Help Abused Animals

Boycott the Shrine Circus, and ask your local Shriners to stop sponsoring animal acts.

The record penalty paid by Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for violations of federal animal welfare laws has so far made no difference for the lame and suffering elephants the circus forces to travel and perform for months at a time. So PETA has sent an urgent appeal to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) asking that the agency order a comprehensive, independent evaluation of the elephants and prohibit Ringling from taking elephants in distress on the road.

Accompanied by PETA's captive wildlife specialist, two veterinarians with decades of elephant experience attended multiple Ringing shows and expressed serious concerns about the health and well-being of eight elephants. One elephant was observed with an abscessed toenail (foot problems are the number one reason why elephants in the U.S. are euthanized), and another had diarrhea. 

While Siam, a 33-year-old, wild-caught Asian elephant, was lying down, a black hole consistent with an abscess was visible on her front left foot.

All eight displayed severely abnormal behaviors and have extensive scarring from being struck with bullhooks. Fifty-four-year-old elephants Aussan and Sarah have shown a dramatic decline in their physical condition during the past few months alone.

The experts also saw a zebra escape from an enclosure during a show and a tiger whose tail was caught in a cage door.

These elephants cannot wait while the USDA pats itself on the back for penalizing Ringling. Please click here to urge the USDA to take immediate enforcement action to get Aussan, Sarah, and all the other elephants suffering for Ringling off the road for good.

Following reports of chronic neglect of elephants held by Florida-based exhibitor Jorge Barreda, who uses elephants for rides and rents them out to circuses like UniverSoul, PETA is calling on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to confiscate the elephants and relocate them to a sanctuary so that they can receive the treatment that they urgently need. USDA inspection reports dating back to April indicate that Barreda has repeatedly failed to provide vital care for the elephants' feet, which can lead to serious, and even fatal, abscesses, infections, osteomyelitis, and other problems.

Foot problems are extremely serious—they are the number one cause of premature death in captive elephants in the U.S., who are forced to stand for long hours on hard surfaces instead of walking for up to 30 miles a day as they would in the wild. Despite the necessity of foot care, circuses and other animal exhibitors often neglect this critical aspect of elephants' health.  

Please avoid all circuses that use elephants and other animals and urge your family and friends to do the same. Click here for a list of animal-free circuses.

Feld Entertainment, the parent company of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, must now pay the largest settlement of its kind in U.S. history―$270,000―for violations of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) dating back to 2007.

PETA has been after the USDA all this time to take action against Ringling for abusing the animals in its care. In recent meetings, we presented unequivocal evidence of animal abuse, including beatings, the death of a lion, lame elephants forced to perform despite chronic pain, and a baby elephant who died during a training routine. We had recently filed a new formal request for action against Ringling, and our attorneys had met with the USDA's general counsel and urged her to begin enforcement proceedings.

PETA presented testimonial and photographic evidence that baby elephants at Ringling's training compound are torn away from their mothers and subjected to violent training sessions so that they will learn how to perform tricks, as well as video footage from a PETA investigation showing how elephants used by Ringling are whipped, beaten, and yanked by heavy, sharp steel-tipped bullhooks behind the scenes, prior to performing. 

In addition to receiving the largest civil penalty ever assessed against an exhibitor under the AWA, Ringling must now provide all employees who handle animals with training and hire a staff member dedicated to AWA compliance. We will see how that goes.

This is a great start, but no one should forget that elephants and other animals pay the price every time anyone buys a ticket to the circus. Ask all the parents you know not to take their children to this cruel show, and explain why or show them this blog.

Please click here to thank the USDA for taking action against Ringling for its abuse of animals, and urge officials to go a step further and confiscate the circus' sick and ailing elephants. 

Written by Jennifer O'Connor

Why would the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) order up animals for experiments from a company that has repeatedly violated federal animal welfare laws? I'm not sure.

The CDC has had contracts with the now notorious Pennsylvania ferret-breeding factory farm Triple F Farms, Inc., totaling more than $1.5 million since 2006. But PETA's recent undercover investigation at Triple F found that its owners, supervisors, and employees left ferrets with bleeding rectal prolapses, gaping wounds, herniated organs, painful mammary gland infections, and ruptured, bleeding eyes to suffer and die without veterinary care. Workers threw live animals into an incinerator, and employees with no veterinary training cut organs and anal sacs from ferrets who were not given adequate pain relief. Our evidence prompted the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to inspect Triple F repeatedly, and federal officials corroborated our findings and have opened an investigation, citing Triple F for a dozen violations of federal laws.

PETA immediately sent CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden the results of our investigation and the USDA's first damning inspection report. But the CDC, which abuses ferrets for respiratory experiments, signed another contract with Triple F, worth $16,750, just weeks later.  

PETA has filed an urgent complaint with the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services because the CDC's latest contract may violate a federal law requiring the government to award business contracts only to reputable and ethical companies.

Click here to ask the CDC to determine whether Triple F should be made ineligible from receiving taxpayers' money because of its horrendous record of abuse and noncompliance.  

Written by Michelle Sherrow

Update: Because it is illegal in Ohio to use a bullhook on an elephant, PETA is offering a $5,000 reward to any arena employee who documents use of the bullhook if it leads to a citation against Ringling Bros. circus.

Originally posted October 4, 2011

Rock star, animal defender, and Ohio native Chrissie Hynde has sent a letter to Cleveland officials to remind them that there is a ban in the state against using prods like bullhooks and "hot shots" on animals in circuses and asked for confirmation that humane authorities would make sure Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus doesn't use them on elephants when the circus comes to town next month. In response the letter, the mayor wrote that the city shares Chrissie's concerns and that "[a]n inspection will be conducted and the event monitored to ensure that the use of bullhooks and other devices that cause harm to circus animals are not used during the Cleveland event."

We'll be watching to make sure that the mayor keeps his word, but we won't be watching the circus, and neither should you.

Written by Jennifer O'Connor

PETA is asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to seize animals from Karl Mitchell, whose repeated, flagrant violations of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) have left us reeling.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) rarely yanks exhibitor's licenses, but Mitchell's license was revoked more than 10 years ago and he was fined $27,500 for violations, including filthy living conditions, failing to provide animals with veterinary care, failing to provide wholesome and palatable food and water or adequate space and shelter, and withholding water as a training technique.

On top of his lengthy list of noncompliances, Mitchell also shot and killed a tiger who escaped his control during transport in 2002. He continues to flout the law, and last year, the USDA issued a third cease-and-desist order against him and assessed fines of almost $70,000 for continuing to exhibit exotic animals without a license.

It seems clear that Mitchell is knowingly violating the Captive Wildlife Safety Act (also known as the "Lacey Act"), which gives the FWS grounds to confiscate his animal "inventory." We're also calling on the USDA to file criminal charges against Mitchell, given his repeated violations of the AWA despite multiple cease-and-desist orders.

Please e-mail the FWS to ask officials to seize Mitchell's animals and e-mail the USDA to demand an investigation.
 

Written by Jennifer O'Connor