For Quick Launch:
November 22, 2022
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Wilkesville, Ohio – At the moment, PETA despatched a letter to U.S. Division of Agriculture Animal Welfare Operations Director Robert Gibbens, urging speedy motion in opposition to CY (beforehand Cyril Vierstra), the domestically primarily based Union Ridge Wildlife Middle proprietor and operator who pleaded responsible in October to a number of felonies regarding his theft of $287,565.11 in public funds and who continues to show primates, tigers, and different wild animals with no license. PETA notes that CY’s current plea and his earlier lies to authorities disqualify him from ever being relicensed.
PETA additionally fired off a letter to Ohio Division of Agriculture (ODA) Director Dorothy Pelanda, calling for an investigation into CY’s apparently intentional failure to inform the ODA of his possession of a chimpanzee named Tonka—who was a part of a PETA federal Endangered Species Act lawsuit—and his failure to acquire and submit the legally required import allow and well being certificates for Tonka. CY admitted that he saved Tonka from July 2021 to February 2022 after his former proprietor introduced him there in violation of a federal courtroom order requiring that the chimpanzee be despatched to an accredited sanctuary. PETA later situated Tonka and organized for his switch to a sanctuary, the place he’s thriving, and notes that each different animal exploited by CY deserves the identical.
“This brazen animal exploiter has repeatedly shirked the regulation, and officers must crack down on him now,” says PETA Normal Counsel for Captive Animal Legislation Enforcement Brittany Peet. “PETA stands prepared to help the Ohio Division of Agriculture to find correct houses for the animals nonetheless in CY’s custody, and we urge the general public to keep away from his apparently illegal operation.”
PETA—whose motto reads, partially, that “animals usually are not ours to make use of for leisure”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For extra data on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please go to PETA.org or comply with the group on Twitter, Fb, or Instagram.