Feds Cite Zootastic After Lame Goats Flagged by PETA

For Immediate Release:
May 6, 2021

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

After PETA alerted the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to goats seen hobbling on the grounds of Zootastic Park who were in need of veterinary care, the agency cited the roadside zoo for failing to notice several animals in the same condition, noting that such inattention could have caused “increased periods of pain and suffering.” One of the goats was a kid whose obvious and almost certainly painful limp likely went untreated for at least two months.

“This wretched roadside zoo has shown that it either can’t or won’t provide the animals in its custody with even basic care,” says PETA Foundation Associate Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Michelle Sinnott, Esq. “PETA is calling on Zootastic to allow all the animals to be transferred to reputable facilities before it’s cited yet again.”

After hearing from PETA, the USDA cited Zootastic just last year for exhibiting an apparently distressed juvenile tiger—who was shown in a video posted to Facebook lying down, unresponsive and panting—at a public event. And in addition to repeatedly failing to provide animals with adequate veterinary care, the park’s long history of violating the federal Animal Welfare Act includes failing to maintain enclosures to prevent injury to the animals, improper handling after a tiger cub bit a member of the public, and failing to have sufficient barriers after a wildebeest charged at a worker, causing major injuries. In 2016, the facility was fined more than $7,000 for animal welfare violations.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.