PETA has just obtained photos and video footage taken during the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) June 22 inspection of Jeff Lowe’s Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park (aka “G.W. Zoo”), during which the notorious exhibitor was cited for numerous failures to provide animals with adequate veterinary care, among other animal welfare issues. The photos show the following:
- A “lethargic, depressed, and thin” young lion named Nala, who inspectors found lying in mud with discharge from one nostril and an accumulation of green discharge in her eyes—her condition was so serious that USDA inspectors stopped their inspection and ordered Lowe to seek immediate veterinary care for her
- Big cats and wolves suffering from flystrike and other wounds
- The partially burned, rotting, and decomposing carcass of a big cat named Young Yi underneath a pile of wood and a tarp that USDA inspectors said concealed the body of a tiger named Dot—they stated that this disposal method attracted flies, thereby causing the flystrike tormenting the big cats and wolves
- An emaciated grizzly bear
- Geriatric wolves confined to a totally barren, concrete-floored enclosure, despite veterinarian’s recommendations to provide them with bedding
- Decrepit enclosures that pose the risk of injury to animals
“These disturbing photos show Jeff Lowe’s total disregard for the suffering that animals are enduring at his roadside zoo compound as well as his inability even to dispose of their dead bodies properly,” says PETA Foundation Deputy General Counsel for Captive Animal Law Enforcement Brittany Peet. “PETA wants authorities to shut down this miserable operation and send the animals to reputable facilities so that they can finally receive the care they need.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—also obtained video footage showing a fisher cat limping inside a decrepit enclosure in which the grated sub-floor was exposed, posing the risk of injury.
Lowe is a defendant in a current PETA Endangered Species Act lawsuit challenging cruel big-cat cub petting by his former business partner, Tim Stark, who sent him the grizzly bear as well as four lions, including Nala.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.
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