Mobile Zoo Slapped With Even More Animal-Welfare Citations

PETA Complaint Over Public Endangerment Prompts Federal Action

For Immediate Release:
February 9, 2015

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

After learning that The Mobile Zoo was allowing members of the public, including young children, to step inside barrier fences to feed tigers, PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—rushed a complaint to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). And according to the January 13 inspection report, which just became available to the public, the USDA inspected the roadside facility and cited it for seven violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA), including for endangering the public and confining animals to filthy enclosures.

The Mobile Zoo has now been cited for at least 55 violations of the AWA since 2013 alone.

“Citation after citation apparently hasn’t persuaded The Mobile Zoo to clean up its act or the filthy, rusty cages that it locks animals in,” says PETA Foundation Deputy General Counsel Delcianna Winders. “PETA is calling on people who care about animals—or their children’s safety—to stay far away from this and any other facility that allows contact with dangerous wild animals.”

The seven new violations include confining lemurs with objects that had a “green growth” on them, allowing a raccoon’s bowl to become soiled with a “brown residue,” confining a fox and lion with excessive amounts of animal waste, and supplying unsafe caging. These violations come on the heels of two citations that the facility received in September 2014—for denying a macaque adequate enrichment and caging a bobcat in an unsafe enclosure—and four citations in July 2014, including denying veterinary care to a tiger who had a bloody cut on her face. In June 2014, the facility was slapped with 14 violations of the AWA, including for having rotting food, swarming flies, and cages littered with animal waste.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.