‘PETA v. Waccatee Zoo’ Case Summary

Case Name: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Inc., et al. v. Kathleen Futrell, Jeff Futrell, and Austin Futrell
Index Number: 4:22-cv-01337
Court: U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina

In December 2021, PETA provided notice of its intent to file suit against the now-defunct Waccatee Zoological Farm—a roadside zoo in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina—and its operators, Kathleen Futrell, Jeff Futrell, and Austin Futrell, for violating the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). The defendants confined and exhibited hundreds of animals of numerous species, including endangered or threatened tigers, lions, ring-tailed lemurs, parrots, and a scimitar-horned oryx, all of whom were protected by the ESA. The case of one tiger, Lila, was particularly egregious. She died in 2021 or late 2020 after losing nearly all her fur and becoming so emaciated that much of her skeleton—including her vertebrae and scapula along with a shoulder, a hip, and other joints—was visible through her skin in the months prior to her death.

At the time we provided notice, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had cited Waccatee for more than 100 violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA). The agency also fined the facility $7,800 on February 28, 2022, for six alleged AWA violations documented throughout 2020 and 2021 for the condition of animals, including llamas and a zebu with significantly overgrown hooves, a Dall ram with significantly overgrown hooves and bloody ulcerative lesions, and limping Aoudad sheep, or animal enclosures, including those of a dromedary camel, Aoudad sheep, and fallow deer, who lacked access to clean drinking water.

PETA, along with two individual coplaintiffs who witnessed the conditions at Waccatee, filed a lawsuit in April 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina alleging that the defendants had violated the ESA by unlawfully “taking” ESA-protected animals. Specifically, we alleged that the defendants had harmed and harassed the animals in question by failing to provide them with adequate veterinary care; failing to provide them with adequate, appropriate nutrition; housing them in small, insecure, and generally inappropriate and unsafe enclosures; failing to keep their living conditions sanitary; failing to provide them with adequate environmental enrichment; and housing them in inappropriate social groupings. We also asserted public nuisance claims over similar alleged failures to care properly for species not covered by the ESA.

PETA Secures the Denial of a Motion to Dismiss

After we and our coplaintiffs filed suit, the defendants unsuccessfully tried to persuade the court to dismiss the case by arguing, in part, that our lawsuit complaint did not plead any legally cognizable claims against any of the defendants. The court rejected that argument, stating, “[T]he court finds that the Plaintiffs have pled sufficient facts and stated plausible claims for relief.”

PETA Secures an Order to Preserve Evidence

In the late summer of 2022, we and our coplaintiffs began receiving reports that the defendants had allegedly been secretly transferring the animals at issue to other facilities despite their continuing obligations to preserve evidence in the case. Our coplaintiffs drove past the roadside zoo and noticed that numerous animals appeared to be missing and that such transfers appeared to be taking place. We hired a private investigator, who also looked into the matter and confirmed that a number of animals had recently been transported away from Waccatee.

We and our coplaintiffs then filed an emergency motion for the preservation of animals with the court, noting that “litigants owe a duty to preserve evidence in a pending lawsuit even without a discovery request or order.” The court granted the motion and, in addition to barring future secret unilateral transfers, ordered the defendants to account for all transferred animals, provide advance notice of any future transfers, and notify any transfer recipients of the pending lawsuit. The court also provided that the discovery required due to the defendants’ actions would not count against discovery limits found in the federal rules and previewed the potential necessity for future sanctions “as appropriate.”

The court’s order is among the now-voluminous body of precedent that PETA Foundation lawyers have won over the years establishing that animals at issue in litigation are, as the court put it, “vital pieces of relevant evidence for the Plaintiffs’ case” because “the central issues in the case involve the animals’ state and living conditions” and that relocation for any reason “will to some degree make the evidence unaccounted for, and therefore, ‘lost’ pending full discovery.”

PETA Secures a Favorable Settlement

While litigation was pending, the defendants notified us, the individual coplaintiffs, and the court that Waccatee’s USDA exhibitor’s license had expired, the roadside zoo would not be renewing it, and the facility would be closing to the public. The parties began discussing the possibility of settlement in light of the permanent closure of the roadside zoo. Despite a lengthy negotiation period during which we continued to prosecute the lawsuit diligently by issuing discovery, working with experts, tracking the missing animals, and performing inspections of the roadside zoo and the remaining animals, a tentative settlement was eventually reached.

In May 2023, PETA and The Wild Animal Refuge rescued the remaining captive animals at Waccatee—six emus, two bears, and a llama—and relocated them to the refuge’s sanctuary in Colorado.

After further negotiations to finalize the language of the contract, the settlement agreement was executed over the summer of 2023. Pursuant to the settlement, the defendants are, among other things, permanently banned from owning or exhibiting wild or exotic animals or any species protected by the ESA—with the exception of the free-roaming peacocks currently on the facility’s property—and are subject to strict limits on owning domesticated animals. They are also prohibited from working or volunteering at any other roadside zoo with AWA violations.

The lawsuit will be formally dismissed once the conditions for dismissal outlined in the settlement agreement are satisfied.