Feds Cite SeaQuest Over Wallaby Drowning, PETA Uncovers

For Immediate Release:
July 16, 2021

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

SeaQuest Littleton has been slapped with a federal citation after a wallaby named Ben drowned in an aquarium tank, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection report that PETA just obtained. The wallaby was unable to escape from the tank because there were no stairs leading out of it, so the agency cited the facility for failing to have species-appropriate enclosures.

The June 3 citation is the latest in a long list of concerns at the Littleton facility. Animals who previously died or were injured at the location include a kookaburra (a type of bird) who reportedly drowned in a water bowl, a sloth named Flash who was burned on the face twice by an exposed heat lamp in his enclosure, and five birds who died after a guest in the interactive aviary stomped on them.

“SeaQuest has stood by and allowed animals to be drowned, burned, and kicked to death,” says PETA Foundation Associate Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Michelle Sinnott, Esq. “PETA is asking the public to help get SeaQuest’s decrepit facilities shut down by refusing to buy a ticket.”

In April 2019, after SeaQuest Littleton had racked up numerous citations, Colorado Parks and Wildlife suspended the facility’s zoological parks license for two years.

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.