Feds Cite The Camel Farm for More Vet-Care Failures

Latest Inspection Report Comes as PETA Sues U.S. Department of Agriculture for Renewing Roadside Zoo’s License

For Immediate Release:
May 24, 2018

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-738

The latest inspection report of The Camel Farm—a roadside zoo in Yuma that’s part of a PETA lawsuit—has just become publicly available, and it reveals that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) continues to cite the facility for failing to provide over a dozen animals with adequate veterinary care.

According to the two-part April 10 report, repeat citations were issued for failing to provide numerous animals—including some who hadn’t been seen by a veterinarian for months, if ever—with adequate veterinary care. These animals include a coatimundi who’d been limping for months, a fennec fox with hair loss and inflamed skin, a camel with a fly-covered growth on his chest, and an excessively thin sheep. Eleven more animals had overgrown hooves. The Camel Farm was also cited yet again for failing to provide a goat who’d been lame for over a year with adequate veterinary care. This was the seventh citation regarding the same goat since March 2017. Last summer, a veterinarian recommended either additional diagnostic tests or euthanasia. After months of inaction, the facility chose the latter.

“The Camel Farm’s rap sheet is full of failures to provide animals with essential veterinary care,” says PETA Foundation Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Brittany Peet. “The animal suffering on display at this ramshackle roadside zoo is exactly why PETA is suing the USDA for automatically renewing the licenses of cruel law-breaking exhibitors.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—has filed a lawsuit that challenges the USDA’s automatic renewal of federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) licenses to facilities such as The Camel Farm. The AWA prohibits licensing a facility that can’t demonstrate that it’s operating in accordance with the act, and in the year before the USDA renewed The Camel Farm’s license, the facility was cited for 33 violations of the AWA.

The recent inspection report also includes citations for failing to provide numerous animals with drinking water and failing to provide animals with safe and sanitary enclosures, among other violations.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.