State Cracks Down on Petting Zoo After ‘Influencer’ Party Stunt

For Immediate Release:
December 2, 2021

Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382

Wimauma, Fla. –

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has just informed PETA that it cited and issued two warnings to Jennifer Walker Caudill—who operates Jenny’s Petting Zoo in Hillsborough County and exhibits animals in circuses and traveling shows—for importing wildlife without proper permits and for unlawful possession of a spider monkey. The citations come after PETA notified the FWC that Caudill’s partner, disgraced former tiger exhibitor Lancelot Ramos Kollman, brought the monkey and other animals to an Atlanta birthday party for rapper and social media influencer Ti Taylor.

“Spider monkeys are sensitive wild animals, not birthday party props,” says PETA Foundation Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Rachel Mathews. “PETA encourages kind people to stay away from Jenny’s Petting Zoo and any other operation that trucks wildlife around without regard for the animals’ well-being or the laws designed to protect them.”

PETA notes that this is not Caudill’s nor Kollman’s first run-in with authorities. Caudill notoriously allowed zebras to escape on multiple occasions from her home and while touring with the UniverSoul Circus, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) stripped Kollman of his license in 2009 after confiscating an emaciated elephant he’d been using for rides. Kollman was previously fined $66,000 for, among other violations of federal law, operating without a license—something he evidently continues to do.

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.