{"id":541,"date":"2024-11-18T16:21:13","date_gmt":"2024-11-18T20:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/njpetblog.org\/?p=541"},"modified":"2024-11-18T16:21:13","modified_gmt":"2024-11-18T20:21:13","slug":"undercover-investigation-stressed-cruelly-treated-animals-trapped-in-mall-petting-zoos-including-woodridge-nj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/njpetblog.org\/index.php\/2024\/11\/18\/undercover-investigation-stressed-cruelly-treated-animals-trapped-in-mall-petting-zoos-including-woodridge-nj\/","title":{"rendered":"Undercover Investigation: Stressed, Cruelly-Treated Animals Trapped in Mall &#8220;Petting Zoos&#8221; Including Woodridge, NJ"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_545\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-545\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-545\" src=\"https:\/\/njpetblog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/SQ-300x157.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"157\" srcset=\"https:\/\/njpetblog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/SQ-300x157.jpg 300w, https:\/\/njpetblog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/SQ-768x402.jpg 768w, https:\/\/njpetblog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/SQ.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-545\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">SeaQuest is the source of hundreds of animal abuse complaints<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Keeping wild animals in small, bare cages inside a retail shopping mall is absurd and abhorrently cruel. <strong>Yet this is the business model of SeaQuest, a for-profit chain of shopping mall-based wild animal petting zoos that has been plagued with <a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/seaquest-mall-aquariums-issues-former-employees\/story?id=107381568\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">controversies<\/a>\u00a0and cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture more than 110 times for violations of the Animal Welfare Act.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">SeaQuest peddles public interactions with wild animals such as sloths, sugar gliders, capybaras, coatimundis, kinkajous, wallabies and Bengal cats, as well as various fish, reptiles and birds. Customers grab, handle, pet and poke at these animals intermittently all day long. <strong>The animals have no access to sunlight or fresh air, no means to escape the loud, chaotic environment created by scores of adults and children coming in and out of SeaQuest facilities throughout the day, and no space or natural habitat in which to express their natural behaviors.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Such an environment\u2014at SeaQuest and other facilities like it\u2014doesn\u2019t teach people to respect and admire animals. It teaches them that wild animals are playthings to be toyed with for amusement. The Humane Society of the United States sent an undercover investigator to two SeaQuest locations to shine a spotlight on this cruelty and strengthen our broader push for an end to it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tapinto.net\/towns\/woodbridge-slash-carteret\/sections\/business-and-finance\/articles\/woodbridge-seaquest-takes-more-heat-from-nj-regulators-activists\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">There is a an abusive #SeaQuest &#8220;zoo&#8221; in #Woodridge, New Jersey in addition to other locales\u00a0<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Local animal activists are fighting to have this abomination CLOSED. We wish them luck!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Keeping wild animals in small, bare cages inside a retail shopping mall is absurd and abhorrently cruel. Yet this is the business model of SeaQuest, a for-profit chain of shopping mall-based wild animal petting zoos that has been plagued with controversies\u00a0and cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture more than 110 times for violations of &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/njpetblog.org\/index.php\/2024\/11\/18\/undercover-investigation-stressed-cruelly-treated-animals-trapped-in-mall-petting-zoos-including-woodridge-nj\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Undercover Investigation: Stressed, Cruelly-Treated Animals Trapped in Mall &#8220;Petting Zoos&#8221; Including Woodridge, NJ&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21,38,268,36,27,39],"tags":[206,35,313,28,225,355],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/njpetblog.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/njpetblog.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/njpetblog.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/njpetblog.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/njpetblog.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/njpetblog.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":547,"href":"https:\/\/njpetblog.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions\/547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/njpetblog.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/njpetblog.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/njpetblog.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}