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PETA Calls On Feds to Terminate Beleaguered Exhibitor’s License
For Fast Launch:
January 12, 2022
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Littleton, Colo. – On high of all its different public relations issues involving the deaths of animals in its “care,” SeaQuest has now pleaded responsible to a felony cost involving the illegal buy of a snapping turtle—one in every of a number of species the aquarium has been prohibited from possessing since April 2019, when the Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife (CPW) suspended its state license—in response to court docket paperwork simply obtained by PETA.
In the present day, PETA despatched a letter to the U.S. Division of Agriculture (USDA) asking the company to terminate SeaQuest’s license to exhibit animals. The federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) permits the USDA to terminate a license if the licensee has been discovered to have violated any legal guidelines or laws pertaining to the transport, possession, neglect, or welfare of animals.
“SeaQuest treats susceptible wildlife like merchandise, not dwelling, feeling beings,” says PETA Basis Affiliate Director of Captive Animal Legislation Enforcement Michelle Sinnott. “PETA is asking on the USDA to observe Colorado wildlife officers’ lead and strip this scofflaw petting zoo firm of its federal license.”
In October 2021, the CPW issued SeaQuest Littleton formal warnings over its unlawful possession of different state-regulated species, together with a painted turtle, a yellow-bellied slider, an ocellated skink, and a Russian tortoise. The ability’s April 2019 two-year state license suspension got here after it racked up eight convictions for violating state wildlife legal guidelines, together with for illegally importing a sloth. It utilized for a brand new license in August 2021 however has but to obtain one, and the CPW has expressed severe considerations about its software.
SeaQuest Littleton additionally has a historical past of AWA violations, together with having obtained a USDA quotation in June 2021 after a wallaby named Ben drowned in an aquarium tank in the back of his enclosure as a result of there was no method for him to climb out of the water.
PETA—whose motto reads, partially, that “animals usually are not ours to make use of for leisure”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For extra info, please go to PETA.org or observe the group on Twitter, Fb, or Instagram.
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