Oroville Roadside Zoo Slapped With More Than $5,000 in Fines

Barry R. Kirshner Wildlife Foundation Left Animals to Languish in 100-Degree Heat, Denied Them Veterinary Care

For Immediate Release:
January 26, 2016

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has just released its order that the notorious Barry R. Kirshner Wildlife Foundation pay more than $5,000 in fines for chronic violations of the Animal Welfare Act, following an inspection prompted by PETA and numerous calls for investigations in recent years. Documented violations include subjecting animals to temperatures of over 100 degrees with no cooling measures, failing to provide a tiger who had an eye injury and a lynx who had limb pain with veterinary care, and allowing members of the public to engage in dangerous direct contact with adult lions, a tiger, and a bear.

“As concerned whistleblowers have told PETA for years, animals have been neglected and are suffering at the Barry R. Kirshner Wildlife Foundation,” says PETA Foundation Deputy Director Brittany Peet. “Caring people should stay far away from this facility—and all roadside zoos, which profit from the miserable confinement of intelligent, sensitive animals.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—notes that the roadside zoo has also been cited for failing to have an environmental enrichment program for two lemurs, allowing two grossly obese exotic cats to languish, providing bears with only filthy brown water to drink, and storing moldy food in open containers or next to products containing chemicals, such as bleach, paint, and car batteries.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.