Feds Cite Local Roadside Zoo for Letting Visitor Into Tiger Cage
For Immediate Release:
October 6, 2021
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently cited local roadside zoo Noah’s Lost Ark after a member of the public—an East Coast animal exhibitor named Larry Wallach—entered a tiger cage with an electric prod and a dog. The citation comes after PETA alerted the USDA to the incident, which occurred during Wallach’s “visit” to see the approximately 10-month-old tiger he had dumped at the Berlin Center facility after she outgrew the dilapidated cage he kept her in under the deck of his New York residence.
“Allowing a man and a dog inside a cage with a tiger is asking for trouble,” says PETA Foundation Associate Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Michelle Sinnott. “PETA urges the public to steer clear of reckless roadside zoos, which routinely endanger animals and the public.”
Earlier this year, a PETA tip about Facebook Live videos—one of which depicted Wallach electroshocking the same tiger, Sheba—resulted in a slew of federal Animal Welfare Act citations for Wallach, including failure to follow veterinary instructions for treatment of Sheba’s broken toe, confining her to an enclosure in disrepair that had broken floorboards, and putting her and a wolf at risk of injury by allowing them to interact in a dangerous manner. In spite of Wallach’s history, staff at Noah’s Lost Ark still allowed him to engage in dangerous and reckless conduct that put Sheba at risk.
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.