January 29th, 2021 by WCBC Radio

This morning, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld PETA’s victory in its federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) lawsuit against Tri-State Zoological Park; its owner and operator, Robert Candy; and an associated entity, Animal Park, Care & Rescue, Inc.—ruling that PETA had standing to bring the suit, in part because the roadside zoo “created the misimpression that the conditions in which the animals were kept were lawful and consistent with animal welfare” and because PETA’s mission demanded that it take action to correct that misimpression.

 

Tri-State had filed the appeal after the United States District Court for the District of Maryland ruled in PETA’s favor in the lawsuit in 2019, resulting in the transfer of three big cats to The Wild Animal Sanctuary in Colorado and a ruling prohibiting the roadside zoo from ever again owning or possessing endangered or threatened species. The judge found that five animals protected by the ESA who had died there between the time PETA gave notice of the suit and the trial—one of whom was so ravaged by sepsis that pus-filled pockets had formed in her heart, tongue, and diaphragm—endured “early and tragic” deaths and described conditions at Tri-State as “fetid and dystopic.”