WYTHE COUNTY, Va. (WDBJ) – The Fort Chiswell Animal Park is urging Governor Glenn Youngkin to veto a bill passed by the General Assembly. The animal park says the bill would greatly hurt its business.
Senate Bill 1125 would ban the bottle raising of mammalian wildlife as well as ban the breeding of hybrid animals like the zedonk, a zebra-donkey hybrid, one of its ambassador animals.
“It’s just shocking that it’s even being considered. It’s going to make us criminals if we perform common husbandry. If we were to bottle feed something, your milk replacer in a bottle could suddenly be used as evidence of a crime,” said Fort Chiswell Animal Park Manager Heidi Crosky.
The bill would make it illegal to separate mammalian wildlife from their mother before the time of weaning without a medical exemption from a species-specific vet.
“We’ve bottle-raised animals here for years. Our original animals, Humphrey the camel, Cody the bison, and Scottie the water buffalo, they were all bottle-raised. We don’t even know, because the enforcement aspect of this bill is very unclear, we don’t know if we’ll be able to purchase animals,” said Crosky. “It’s targeting the commercial aspect of legal businesses. Are we going to be able to buy and sell between licensed USDA facilities? We don’t know,”
Crosky said that the park takes great care of its animals and that it is not inhumane to raise animals like antelope and buffalos with bottle feeding.
“We’re just trying to get people to understand that it shouldn’t be illegal. It’s not cruel to bottle feed a regular calf and it’s not cruel to bottle feed a bison,” she said.
The bill does not apply to accredited zoos. However, Crosky said that even though Fort Chiswell Animal Park is not accredited, it does love and care for its animals.
“It does take money, a lot of money, to be accredited. So we just put our money directly into our animals. We have chosen not to be accredited, but we provide excellent care. Accreditation does not determine care,” she said.
The bill also bans hybridization, the breeding of different species. The animal park claims this is not unnatural, and animals like the zedonk are perfectly healthy.
“If you research it, you will find where zedonks have occurred in Africa where the donkeys will go and visit with the wild zebra herd. So it might not be as common, but it does happen, and it definitely should not be outlawed,” said Crosky.
Crosky said that the animal park believes the bill violates the federal Dormant Commerce Clause.
“It protects businesses to be able to conduct business freely. We are going to bring this up to the Governor’s staff because we think this bill if it’s signed into law, will violate that because it is so discriminatory to the small zoos,” she said.
The bill passed both houses of the General Assembly with some bipartisan support as a few Republicans joined Democrats to pass it. Its sponsor, State Senator Jennifer Boysko, could not be reached for comment on Friday, but her office did provide the contact for the PETA staff member who advocated for the bill.
WDBJ7 spoke with PETA Senior Vice President of Cruelty Investigations Daphna Nachminovitch and PETA Senior Director of Captive Wildlife Debbie Metzler about their support for the bill.
Nachminovitch said the bill was created in response to the recent cruelty investigation of the Natural Bridge Zoo.
“A couple of the things that came out during court proceedings was that there was a habit of a systematic premature separation of exotic baby animals from their mothers for the purpose of selling those animals, often across state lines, to other roadside zoos, exotic auctions, or private collectors, and causing those animals a tremendous amount of suffering,” said Nachminovitch.
PETA claims that separating wild animals from their mothers while they are still weaning is very harmful.
“Premature separation of wild animals is extremely traumatic for both the infant and the mother. So reputative facilities will only do this in extreme cases of medical necessity. The bill actually does make an exemption for that,” said Metzler. “This is the practice reputable institutions would do because they know that separating infants from their mothers causes a lot of psychological and physical trauma, and it can last for their whole lives.”
PETA also said that the hybridization of animals is a harmful practice and said it worked with accredited zoos to advocate for the bill. It said those zoos were in favor of the hybridization ban.
“I think that it happens in extremely rare cases, and even in those cases, those animals are not usually able to breed. So even nature itself does not see this crossbreeding of animals as a natural thing. So it’s similar to a lion and a tiger makes a liger. I think most people realize that that’s unnatural, and these are animals who would never normally cross paths in the wild,” said Metzler.
PETA said the bill does not explicitly ban bottle feeding, but the bottle feeding of these kinds of animals shouldn’t be necessary because they shouldn’t separated from their mothers.
“I would ask why is it necessary to bottle-raise them if their mothers are right there. The bill does not prohibit bottle raising if there’s a medical necessity. So if there’s a problem, if the mother is unwell or the baby is unwell or interference is needed, a licensed veterinarian has deemed that baby as a baby that can’t nurse from the mother. There’s nothing in the bill that says bottle feeding is prohibited, it simply says it’s illegal to prematurely separate unless there’s a medical necessity,” said Nachminovitch.
Nachminovitch said PETA believes all zoos should be on board with the legislation that it said protects animals.
“The only reason you wouldn’t be on board is if you make money selling the baby. There’s no reason. I mean, there is no reason for the baby to not be with their mother, that’s what nature intended. There’s no need for inhuman interference there,” she said. “This is an attempt to prevent another Natural Bridge Zoo, to prevent people from intentionally harming animals for the purpose of making money.”
Nachminovitch said the bill wouldn’t prevent zoos like the Fort Chiswell Animal Park from purchasing animals once they no longer require nursing. She added that she doesn’t believe the bill would apply to alternative livestock like bison, buffalos, or yak. However, Virginia state code does not list these kinds of animals as domestic cattle.
You can view PETA’s fact sheet advocating for the bill below.
PETA Fact Sheet by colby.johnson on Scribd
The Fort Chiswell Animal Park said it has been in touch with Governor Youngkin’s staff and is hopeful to get a meeting with them to urge the Governor to veto the bill. Youngkin could either veto the bill or sign it into law anytime over the next month.
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