Take Action: Animals Are Suffering and Dying at Hovatter’s Wildlife Zoo!
Hovatter’s Wildlife Zoo in Kingwood, West Virginia, is a dismal roadside zoo with a history of violating the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA). Chimpanzees have been observed swaying back and forth, an abnormal repetitive behavior indicating psychological distress, while confined to barren enclosures littered with old food and feces. Sadly, Hovatter’s recently acquired a baby chimpanzee named Petunia, who was shipped nearly 900 miles from a shady primate dealer when she was only 10 days old.
Hovatter’s has received over 70 citations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) since 2001, including for failing to provide veterinary care to a tiger with a tail infection, a zebra with overgrown hooves, two hyenas with wounds on their backs, a thin lynx, and an alpaca with overgrown teeth that were inhibiting his ability to eat. A chimpanzee and a snow macaque died within less than a year of each other. Their causes of death were never determined, and they were never examined by a veterinarian. In 2015, the facility was cited for taking three tiger cubs from their mothers the day they were born to be hand-raised and used for photo ops with the public, exposing them to stress and disease.
Chimpanzees are our closest living relatives, and in nature they use tools for hunting and foraging for nuts, insects, and honey in the forests of Africa. At Hovatter’s, they and other primates sway and pace in barren cages that have been repeatedly flagged by the USDA for being unsanitary and lacking adequate enrichment. Denying these animals the opportunity to fulfill their most innate wants and needs is a form of speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview.
Please urge Hovatter’s Wildlife Zoo to make a plan to send the animals to reputable facilities where they could live in vast, lush habitats and get the care they deserve.
Send polite comments to:
Bryan Hovatter, Owner
Hovatter’s Wildlife Zoo
[email protected]
Please feel free to use our sample letter, but remember that using your own words is always more effective.
