Facing PETA Lawsuit, Feds Finally Mobilize Against Sugarcreek Roadside Zoo

USDA Files Administrative Complaint Against The Farm at Walnut Creek Exhibitor Henry Hampton Over Numerous Animal-Welfare Violations

For Immediate Release:
October 11, 2018

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

PETA has learned that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has filed an administrative complaint against notorious animal exhibitor Henry Hampton for more than 70 violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) during a four-year period at his two facilities, The Farm at Walnut Creek in Sugarcreek and Lazy 5 Ranch in Mooresville, North Carolina. The action comes after PETA filed a lawsuit against the USDA in May challenging the agency’s automatic renewal of Hampton’s AWA license despite his long list of violations of the act.

“Again and again, Henry Hampton has denied sick animals veterinary care and left them to suffer without help, and his mile-long rap sheet of animal-welfare issues reflects that,” says PETA Foundation Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Delcianna Winders. “PETA thanks authorities for finally taking action to hold Hampton accountable for years of Animal Welfare Act violations and is calling on kind people to stay far away from his abusive operations.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—notes that Walnut Creek has been cited for performing painful tail-docking and castration procedures on sheep without veterinary supervision and leaving a massive heap of animal waste and soiled bedding for years in an area accessible to animals. Hampton has also been cited repeatedly over the years for allowing dangerous unsupervised public contact with animals and authorizing the use of a tranquilizing drug that has no pain-relieving properties and can cause distress, paralyze respiratory muscles, and impede animals’ breathing, causing them to die of suffocation while fully conscious but immobilized.

Violations at Walnut Creek that were identified in the USDA’s complaint include failing to arrange adequate veterinary care for a sheep with a flesh-colored mass protruding from her vulva, a ram with a golf ball–size mass on his chest, and several limping sheep and goats and failing to provide goats, sheep, zebu, lemurs, kangaroos, and other animals with access to potable water on numerous occasions.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.