If you’re planning on attending your local fair or carnival this season, be sure that barnyard animals are not part of the festivities. Petting zoos are not only inhumane, they’re potentially deadly. At least 26 children and four adults contracted life-threatening E. coli infections after visiting petting zoos at the Central Florida Fair in Orlando, the Florida Strawberry Festival in Plant City, and the Florida State Fair in Tampa in 2005. The E. coli bacteria was traced to six animals — two goats, two sheep, and two cows — used by Ag-Venture Farm Shows, the company that supplied the animals at all three fairs.
The outbreak put fear into parents’ hearts, caused a number of schools to cancel field trips to petting zoos, and prompted health officials to scrutinize barnyard exhibits more carefully. But instead of shutting these exhibits down, health officials simply warned people to wash their hands after petting the animals, use hand sanitizer, and/or wear plastic gloves.
These measures simply aren’t good enough when children’s lives are at risk, particularly as they do nothing to prevent people from inhaling the bacteria. According to Fair and Petting Zoo Safety, a Web site which provides information on outbreaks of zoonotic diseases at fairs and petting zoos, “ingestion or perhaps even inhalation of contaminated dust particles may be how fair attendees become infected with the bacteria.”
Health inspectors have suspected this for years. They traced an E. coli outbreak that sickened 23 people who attended the Lorain County Fair in Ohio in 2001 to an animal show barn and determined that E. coli bacteria was in rafters, on bleachers, on the walls, and in sawdust on the floor. Health investigators also believe that the E. coli bacteria that sickened at least 82 people at the Lane County Fair in Washington in 2002 spread through the air inside the goat and sheep exposition hall. At least 12 children were hospitalized with hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a potentially deadly complication of E. coli infection that causes kidney failure.
Fifteen of the 108 children who became ill after visiting the Crossroads Farm Petting Zoo at the North Carolina State Fair in 2004 developed HUS, and through the years, scores of other children have contracted harmful salmonella and E. coli infections after visiting petting zoos. One little girl became so sick from E. coli bacteria from cattle at Merrymead Farm in Worchester, Penn. that she had to have both kidneys removed and underwent a kidney transplant operation.
Thousands of people who visit petting zoos every year are exposed to what the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta calls a “significant risk” of contracting salmonella and E. coli infections from reptiles and domestic animals.
Why then are agricultural exhibits permitted at state fairs and other public events? Petting zoos pose a very real threat, especially to children, and while hand washing stations certainly serve a purpose, they may also give parents a false security that their kids are safe.
And what about the animals who languish in petting zoos? Who is protecting them? The federal Animal Welfare Act, which doesn’t even cover birds, horses, and some other species, only requires petting zoos to give certain animals enough room to stand up and turn around. Many exhibitors ship animals from fair to fair from early spring to late fall. They are given little reprieve from the barrage of human contact. As soon as one exhibit is over, the animals are packed in cramped cages in tractor trailers, and shipped to another, as if they have no more feelings than the plastic gophers in the Whack-a-Mole games. Setting up second-rate enclosures on a midway does nothing to foster respect for animals. Most children simply spend a minute or two oohing and aahing at the animals before moving on to the rides, games, and cotton candy booths. The exhibits are certainly not “educational.” Children are rarely even taught that many of the animals they are petting and fussing over will eventually be sent to livestock auctions and slaughtered for food. The only thing these exhibits teach children is that it is acceptable to display animals for own amusement.
Petting zoos are bad news—they endanger public safety and exploit animals. It’s time to stop downplaying the risks and the abuse and shut them down for good.
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Comments: 7
I always felt sorry for the animals, though. I will pass this article on!
The Philadelphia Zoo has had a petting zoo for decades, and I am aware no problems with it. Perhaps that is because the zoo is the animals home, the animals are well cared for. and when the exhibit is open it is staffed with attendants who are trained to watch both the children and the animals for any behavior or conditions that could be detrimental to either and their duties include the prompt removal of excrement. The number of children allowed in at any one time was limited when my daughter was small enough to be intrigued by it, and I suspect such rules still exist. One of the other things I recall is attendants removing animals from the petting area if an animal showed any signs of be aggravated by or avoiding contact with children.
The petting zoos that are but one of the many exhibits in urban zoos provide a learning experience for city and many suburban children that they cannot acquire any where else and. I suspect that like the one I remember visiting with my daughter at the Philadelphia Zoo, are operated to provide a safe experience for both the children and the animals.