Feds Urged to Revoke Wildlife Exhibitor’s License After Child Injured

For Immediate Release:
October 20, 2022

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

In light of Anderson & Girls Orchards’ mounting violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA)—including a recent citation after a goat bit a child—PETA fired off a letter this morning calling on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to revoke the owner’s exhibitor license. The group notes that wildlife exhibitor Terry Anderson has racked up 46 citations in eight years for failing to meet the minimum requirements of the AWA, 35 of which are from the past four years alone and include citations for forcing animals to live amid severe accumulations of feces and failing to provide ailing animals with veterinary care.

For years, Anderson has been slapped with citations for failing to adequately supervise visitor interactions with animals—and on September 14, the USDA issued Anderson a “critical” citation for failing to supervise visitors’ interactions with goats or provide a sufficient barrier between the goats and the public, resulting in injury to a child that required medical attention.

“Anderson & Girls Orchards has had years to clean up its act, but now a child has been injured and the veterinary care failures show no sign of letting up,” says PETA Foundation Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Michelle Sinnott. “PETA is calling on the USDA to revoke the license of this seedy outfit as if lives depended on it, because they do.”

Previous citations also include failing to obtain adequate veterinary care for a rabbit suffering from a swollen eye with yellow-green discharge; failing to alert the veterinarian after a mother marmoset dropped one of her babies, who ultimately died; and failing to provide a capybara who had a limp and red, inflamed skin with veterinary care. The USDA also frequently cites Anderson for allowing animal enclosures to fall into a state of disrepair. In 2021, the USDA issued the facility a $3,875 penalty for previously alleged violations. During the September 14 visit, Anderson received an additional direct citation for failing to provide seven zebu whose hooves were “severely overgrown” with adequate veterinary care and a repeat citation for failing to fix a gap in the fencing around the camel enclosure, putting the animals at risk of injury.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.