Exposed: More than 99 Animal Deaths at Besieged Welsh Zoo Since 2014

For Immediate Release:

17 November 2017

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 222; [email protected]

EXPOSED: MORE THAN 99 ANIMAL DEATHS AT BESIEGED WELSH ZOO SINCE 2014

PETA Supporters Call for Zoo to Be Stripped of Its Licence, Surviving Animals to Be Moved to Reputable Sanctuaries

Borth – Last night, PETA sent a petition with almost 6,500 signatures to Ceredigion County Council urging it to revoke Borth Wild Animal Kingdom’s licence after the group received documents from the council which revealed that at least 99 animals have died at the zoo since 2014. These deaths include the recent high-profile cases of Eurasian lynxes Lillith, who escaped after jumping over a fence and was shot dead by a hunter, and Nilly, who was strangled to death by a handler while being moved from an enclosure that the zoo has admitted was “not fit for purpose”.

“No enclosure at Borth Wild Animal Kingdom is ‘fit for purpose’, because no zoo is ‘fit for purpose’,” says PETA Director of International Programmes Mimi Bekhechi. “PETA is calling on Ceredigion County Council to end the imprisonment and deaths at Borth Wild Animal Kingdom by stripping the zoo of its licence and sending all surviving animals to reputable sanctuaries.”

Other animals who died at the zoo in the last three years include wallabies, marmoset monkeys, Egyptian fruit bats, and three other lynxes. During that period, 184 animals were “disposed of”, according to the documents. The owners, who are under investigation by the council for breaches of their licence, have admitted they “didn’t have much of an idea” what they were doing when they bought the facility earlier this year. Numerous reviewers on TripAdvisor have reported cramped, dirty enclosures in which some animals were living amid their own faeces and some paced in circles in apparent psychological distress.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” – has joined with Lynx UK Trust to call for the zoo to hand over the surviving lynxes to an accredited sanctuary. Lynxes are solitary animals who, in their natural environment, roam vast distances through dense forest and can run at speeds of up to 40 miles an hour. At Borth Wild Animal Kingdom, five of them were crowded together in a tiny enclosure, resulting in stress and aggression.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

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