Local SeaQuest Under Fire From Feds for Sugar Glider Injury; PETA Urges Families to Stay Away
For Immediate Release:
August 25, 2023
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
PETA just obtained a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspection report of SeaQuest’s local aquarium and petting zoo revealing that a sugar glider named Luna had to have half of her tail amputated after it became entangled in a piece of chain in her enclosure, resulting in a critical citation from the federal agency.
“This sugar glider’s ordeal is yet more proof that vulnerable animals are in danger of being maimed or worse every minute they spend confined at SeaQuest,” says PETA Foundation Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Michelle Sinnott. “PETA urges everyone to avoid these shady operations, which churn out animal welfare violations like they’re competing for the title of ‘most notorious.’”
Luna’s ordeal is the latest in a string of failings at SeaQuest Littleton. The facility was cited earlier this year after workers missed a dose of three medications they were supposed to administer to another sugar glider. It was also cited for failing to maintain a rabbit enclosure, which had exposed mesh and other potentially hazardous materials. In 2021, the USDA cited the facility after a wallaby held there was unable to escape an aquarium tank and drowned, and in 2018, a sloth was burned by a heat lamp—twice.
The chain’s operation in Trumbull, Connecticut, closed permanently earlier this month following numerous PETA complaints and after it racked up multiple USDA citations, including for incidents in which a staffer hit an otter with a metal bowl, rabbits were left without food or water, an otter bit a child, and enclosures were filled with feces and debris. The group wants the chain’s other locations—including the one in Littleton—to follow suit.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
