Dallas World Aquarium Slapped With Animal-Welfare Violations
Manatee, Monkey, and Other Animals Found Languishing Without Vital Veterinary Care, Drinking Water, and More
For Immediate Release:
October 29, 2015
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
The Dallas World Aquarium—a notoriously neglectful facility that PETA has tracked and criticized for years—has been cited for multiple violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA). According to the September 22 U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspection report, which just became publicly available, an agouti (a rodent related to the guinea pig) and a tamarin monkey both suffered from extensive hair loss—which can indicate parasites, systemic disease, or stress problems—but had not received any veterinary evaluation or treatment, and a manatee had not been examined by a veterinarian in over a year. The latest report also notes that sloths and large birds had only brown, debris-filled water to drink and that food storage and preparation areas were unsanitary and in disrepair.
“This latest inspection confirms that the Dallas World Aquarium fails to provide animals with basic necessities like veterinary care, clean water, and secure housing,” says PETA Foundation Deputy Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Brittany Peet. “PETA is calling on families to refuse to buy tickets to this facility or any other animal-exploiting business that breeds and buys animals and displays them in tiny tanks and cages.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—has been monitoring the facility’s bizarre history of animal deaths and injuries for years. This includes a jaguar who ingested a large toucan beak and died from the resulting intestinal blockage, an ocelot who lost his leg after a jaguar attacked him, storks who died from infection after their water pump failed, and 11 sloths who died after they were imported by the facility, which admitted that it wasn’t prepared to handle them.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.
