Animal Haven Zoo Is Falling Apart and the Animals Are Dying

Animal Haven Zoo is a decrepit roadside zoo in Weyauwega, Wisconsin, with a long list of Animal Welfare Act (AWA) violations dating back at least a decade. These failures mean animals there have been denied veterinary care and water, and some have sustained life-threatening injuries. Multiple animals have died or are unaccounted for. In July 2026, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) suspended the facility’s license to exhibit for 21 days, after the following serious incidents in the first half of the year:

• February 24, 2026: The facility failed to notify the vet or seek medical treatment for a newborn Black belly sheep who was unable to use his or her rear legs due to severe lameness.
• March 24, 2026: The facility failed to notify the vet or seek medical care for an emu who had a 6-inch-long area of feather loss on her back “for months” and a swelling on her left knee. Animal Haven was also cited for using filthy feed buckets for pigs, muntjac, sheep, goats, and bears, which hadn’t been cleaned in “at least 10 days.”
  

• June 3, 2026: The facility failed to notice a dead sheep in an enclosure during their daily observations. The sheep had been dead for at least 24 hours when inspectors found him or her. The facility was also cited for multiple enclosures confining Hawaiian sheep, wool sheep, and alpacas in disrepair, with hazards that could injure the animals.

A Tiger Cub With a Bloody Nose

In the summer of 2025, PETA was alerted by several concerned citizens that a new 2-month-old tiger, Al, had appeared at Animal Haven Zoo, and that he was vocalizing and frantically pacing back and forth, causing his nose to rub against the caging and bleed. Al was confined alone in a small, barren enclosure with no visible water. He was subsequently transferred to another shoddy roadside zoo.

2024 and 2025: Animals Dead, Escaped, and Missing

Animal Haven Zoo routinely fails to repair sharp edges, mend leaning and broken fences, and fill in holes, so animals have been injured or killed, and some have escaped due to issues that were entirely preventable.

August 26, 2025

• The USDA hit Animal Haven Zoo with a critical citation after severe wind gusts blew in a door, leaving a gap which allowed three bobwhite quail to escape their enclosure. Staff stated they heard the birds calling for several days after they escaped, but they were never accounted for.

June 3, 2025

• Animal Haven Zoo was cited by the USDA for several enclosures in disrepair that failed to protect the animals from injury and contain them, including the goat enclosure, where inspectors observed a goat kid escaping out of a gap at the bottom of the fence.

January 28, 2025, and November 12, 2024

• The USDA issued several citations to Animal Haven Zoo for the escape and subsequent death of a young kangaroo. The joey escaped his primary enclosure on October 31, 2024 during a move to indoor housing for the winter, was loose for two weeks “while temperature lows approached freezing,” and died after being recaptured by throwing a tarp over him.

October 21, 2024

• The USDA slapped Animal Haven Zoo with a repeat citation for failing to confirm if one of the female wolves was in her enclosure for multiple days. The inspectors were also unable to observe the wolf on the third day of searching.

July 29, 2024

• The USDA slapped Animal Haven Zoo with a critical citation because an emu was cut “possibly down to the bone” on the right side of her body, apparently by either a leaning fence post or a piece of loose tin with exposed edges on a shelter. The wound was so severe that a veterinarian recommended euthanasia.

April 24, 2024

• In April, the government gave the dilapidated zoo a critical repeat citation for failing to observe the animals daily and report any issues to a veterinarian after inspectors found the dead and decomposing body of a lamb with maggots underneath it in the Dall sheep pasture barn. The facility staff “did not know how long it had been there” because “the barn isn’t checked every day,” but the inspectors suspected the lamb had been there for at least several days.

January 18, 2024

• The roadside zoo received a direct citation for failing to provide two big cats (a lion and a liger) with warm, insulating bedding in 10-degree weather. The lion had a thin layer of frozen hay covering the floor inside his shelter, and there were 12 inches of snow inside the enclosure in front of the shelter. Inspectors noted that “at the start of the inspection, the lion was hunched up inside the shelter, intermittently raising his paws off the floor and groaning.”
• The facility also received a direct citation for failing to provide the male lion with drinking water for 2 days. The water in his bowl had frozen, and a facility representative claimed that the lion “doesn’t walk out to his water dish when there is snow on the ground.”

Feds Previously Imposed a Fine for Multiple Violations

In February 2022, the USDA issued Animal Haven Zoo a $6,450 penalty for eight egregious violations that occurred between November 2020 and November 2021, including failing to give a liger water for roughly 20 hours, failing to provide adequate veterinary care to a thin lamb who had symptoms of diarrhea and a rabbit with eye and ear discharge, and letting an employee take a 3-week-old tiger cub to a local school to be passed around like a toy.

You Can Help the Animals Confined at Animal Haven Zoo

Please urge Animal Haven Zoo to send the animals there to accredited sanctuaries, where they could finally get the care they desperately need: