PETA to Feds: Pull the Plug on Notorious Roadside Zoo!

Authorities Can’t Legally Renew The Camel Farm’s Animal Welfare Act License, Says Group

For Immediate Release:
November 29, 2018

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

This morning, PETA filed a request urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) not to renew the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) license for Yuma-based roadside zoo The Camel Farm when it expires on December 6.

In the letter, PETA points out that The Camel Farm has been cited for over 20 violations of the AWA this year alone, more than a dozen of which are repeat offenses. At nearly every inspection this year, the facility was cited for failing to provide animals including the following with adequate veterinary care: an emaciated sheep with painfully overgrown hooves who was missing patches of hair, a goat who was unable to bear weight on his right foreleg for nearly a year, and a 2-month-old sheep who struggled to walk and even stand. All these animals were eventually euthanized. In addition, the facility was cited for failing to provide a goat who had a mass above his right eye that was “red, inflamed and bulging out of the eye socket” with adequate veterinary care.

“The Camel Farm has shown time and again that it either can’t or won’t provide the animals in its custody with even basic care, let alone the quality of life that they deserve,” says PETA Foundation Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Delcianna Winders. “PETA is calling on the USDA not to give this rundown roadside zoo the green light to continue neglecting and endangering animals.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment”—notes that The Camel Farm has also been cited for keeping animals in dangerously rundown enclosures that provide inadequate shelter from the elements and have metal wires, exposed screw tips, broken wooden boards, gaps that animals could escape through or get stuck in, and rusted metal walls.

In May, PETA sued the USDA over the agency’s decision to renew The Camel Farm’s AWA license in 2017, a case that’s ongoing.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.