‘All Things Wild’ Exhibitor Faces $16,000 Penalty

‘All Things Wild’ Exhibitor Lisa Lopez Slapped With $16,000 Civil Penalty Following Multiple Investigation Requests by PETA

Published November 21, 2022 by Elena Waldman. Last Updated April 16, 2024.

3 min read

Lisa Lopez, a repeat animal welfare offender and operator of a cruel traveling tiger exhibit known as “All Things Wild,” has been slapped with a $16,000 penalty for exhibiting two tigers without a license and for offering dangerous public feeding encounters at two state fairs. This civil penalty comes after a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) probe, a formal federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) complaint, and multiple USDA investigation requests by PETA.

All Things Wild hauls tigers from one festival to the next, confining the animals to barren, cramped cages and putting suffering on display at noisy fairs across the country.

Lopez Has a History of Falling Foul of the Law

PETA has repeatedly raised alarm bells about All Things Wild, which confines tigers to cramped trailers and hauls them all over the country to exploit them for photo ops. In 2022, the USDA filed a formal complaint against Lopez, alleging that she had exhibited tigers without a valid license and failed to maintain sufficient distance and/or barriers between the tigers and the public at Alabama and Georgia state fairs in 2020.

Also in 2022, Fort Worth, Texas, city officials canceled her planned appearance at a fair after PETA pointed out that the display would have violated local laws prohibiting the possession of tigers and other wild or exotic animals. In 2021, after PETA alerted officials that Lopez had offered paying customers photos with tigers at a flea market in Liberty, Texas, the USDA cited her and ordered her to stop illegally exhibiting the big cats without a license.

All Things Wild exhibit with tigers — No stranger to skirting law enforcement, the menacing menagerie known as All Things Wild drags along an extensive rap sheet wherever it travels.

In September 2020, the USDA terminated the license of Michael Todd—another animal exploiter whose license Lopez used to exhibit tigers illegally at the time—and Lopez has since exhibited the tigers under her daughter’s license for another animal exhibitor, Genesis Shur-Path Inc. In October 2020, PETA requested an investigation into All Things Wild’s ongoing tiger exhibit after the termination of its license.

In addition, the license of Lopez’s business partner Marcus Cook—who confines the tigers used by All Things Wild on his property in Texas—to exhibit tigers was permanently revoked in 2012 after he was charged with nearly 100 AWA violations. In 2017, Lopez was denied her own license to exhibit tigers.

The USDA’s civil penalty makes clear what PETA has been saying for years: Lopez’s shady, cruel practices violate federal laws designed to protect animals.

Here’s How to Help Animals Exploited at Festivals and Fairs

At festivals and fairs around the world, traveling menageries imprison wild animals in cages, haul them across long distances, put them on display for noisy crowds to gawk at, force them into stressful photo ops with humans, and deny them any semblance of a natural life. Don’t support these cruel exhibits, and urge festivals and fairs to leave wild animals alone:

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