The U.S. Department of Agriculture has filed a complaint against the company that operates drive- and walk-through safaris in Northwest Arkansas.
In a January filing, the agency’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said that it had reason to believe Wild Wilderness Inc. “willfully violated” the Animal Welfare Act.
Violations were found between January 2012 and November 2016 at the company’s Wild Wilderness Drive-Through Safari in Gentry, the complaint states.
[DOCUMENT: Read full USDA complaint against Wild Wilderness]
Among the reported violations were inadequate barriers between animals and safari visitors, inadequate measures to alleviate the effect of cold weather conditions and inadequate veterinary care to treat diseases and injuries.
A young male lion with a collar around its neck was found dead in its enclosure “having apparently been strangled,” the complaint states.
The Agriculture Department also said it found two ring-tailed lemurs chewing on live electrical wire and a spider monkey that had lost several digits as a result of developing frostbite in cold conditions.
Wild Wilderness Drive-Through Safari sits on 400 acres in Gentry, which is nearly 33 miles northwest of Fayetteville.
Arkansas Online reached out to the safari for comment Tuesday afternoon. A response to the complaint was not immediately available.
Read Wednesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.
