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PETA Asks FTC to Investigate Facility for Unfair Trade Practices
For Immediate Release:
December 5, 2022
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Austin, Texas – This morning, PETA submitted a criticism to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requesting that the company examine Austin Aquarium—which is outwardly run by convicted wildlife trafficker Ammon Covino—for unfair enterprise practices, noting that members of the public, together with youngsters, have been bitten and injured at the aquarium, which continues to market hands-on encounters with animals as secure, family-friendly leisure.
PETA’s criticism factors out {that a} lemur at the aquarium bit a 17-year-old and one other visitor throughout separate interactions, prompting every to search medical remedy. The facility additionally obtained crucial citations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which led to an official warning for alleged violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act, over two different incidents through which a lemur bit a 10-year-old’s hand throughout an interplay and a kinkajou bit a boy’s hand, inflicting an harm that required medical consideration.
“Austin Aquarium’s animal encounters have caused significant physical injury to an unsuspecting public, thereby violating the FTC Act’s prohibition on unfair trade practices,” says PETA Foundation Director of Captive Animal Law Enforcement Michelle Sinnott. “PETA is calling on the government to act before another person is wounded or worse at this operation, which is a ticking time bomb.”
PETA’s criticism follows the group’s undercover investigation into Austin Aquarium, which documented a employees member’s remark “Guests usually get it bad whenever they get bit by a kinkajou.” During the four-month interval of the investigation, there have been 34 incidents through which animals—together with lemurs, kinkajous, otters, and a capybara—scratched, bit, or in any other case injured friends or workers. According to one employee, after a lemur bit a toddler with a cochlear implant, Covino instructed employees, “No more retarded kids in lemurs.” Covino is prohibited from holding a USDA exhibitor’s license due to his legal historical past however seems to have continued his involvement in working Austin Aquarium through the use of his spouse’s identify on official paperwork.
Even although administration is aware of that animal assaults have to be reported to authorities, PETA’s undercover investigator was informed by no means to doc them. The group’s investigation additionally revealed an aquarium worker’s reported try to crush a rat to demise with a cinderblock, numerous lacking snakes, injured animals left to languish with out veterinary care, deserted animals, and different horrors.
PETA—whose motto reads, partially, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview— additionally submitted an FTC criticism over animal encounters at SeaQuest Fort Worth, which is run by Ammon Covino’s brother, Vince.
For extra info on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please go to PETA.org or comply with the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
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