To listen to animal rights activists inform it, these at SeaQuest will not be. The for-profit firm just isn’t accredited by any zoo group. It has at occasions run afoul of the usD.A., which governs solely a number of the fauna on show. Final summer season, the four-year-old SeaQuest in Trumbull, Conn., closed after a number of U.S.D.A. citations, together with one when a baby was bitten by a sugar glider. (The ability was written up for inadequate supervision.) One other in Colorado closed this yr after quite a few state and federal citations.
The corporate has drawn near-constant protests from former staff and teams like PETA, which filed complaints over what it known as SeaQuest’s cruelty, neglect and exploitation. Based on state data obtained by The New York Instances, practically 100 animals, together with two sloths, died on the Woodbridge location between 2019, when it opened, and 2023.
Late final month, the fish and wildlife division of New Jersey’s Division of Environmental Safety despatched the corporate a 32-page discover of violations, itemizing dozens of animals that have been diseased, injured or mistreated, together with territorial reptiles that have been combating so aggressively they drew blood, which spilled round their enclosure. An otter and a porcupine escaped, recorded by safety cameras however unnoticed by workers. A careworn scarlet macaw plucked out its feathers. Authorities instructed SeaQuest it should instantly change its practices, and pay a nominal penalty by July 10, or threat substantial fines and the revocation of its permits and animals.
Requested for remark after the violations have been filed, a SeaQuest spokeswoman pointed The Instances to the FAQ part of the corporate’s web site. In a response to an earlier ABC Information investigation, the corporate had posted, “Between 2021 and 2022, SeaQuest Woodbridge acquired a whole bunch of rescue animals, lots of whom have been in very poor well being.” Executives didn’t reply to questions on particular incidents.
Two sloths have additionally died on the Las Vegas SeaQuest. Like all of the others, it’s positioned in an indoor buying heart, the place pure mild, humidity, vegetation and diggable flooring — the environmental setting during which many animals thrive — are briefly provide.
