Petting zoos are dangerous for visitors and cruel for animals
By Lethbridge Herald on September 20, 2024.
Editor:
“Coulee Fest welcomes public to Polytechnic campus” – no one should underestimate the risks associated with petting zoos and hands-on animal displays, including the organizers of the Coulee Fest.
Petting zoos are hotbeds of E. coli bacteria, and numerous children have been infected with the bug after visiting such displays. Symptoms can include bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramping, vomiting and fever. It can be fatal.
Children and adults alike have contracted E. coli after petting animals or simply touching the surroundings near a display. The bacteria have been found on railings, bleachers and even sawdust.
These displays are bad for animals, too. Forced to interact with constant streams of excited and sometimes careless children, animals in petting zoos can be stressed and exhausted.
If event organizers want to avoid potential liability nightmares, they’ll stick with monster trucks and bouncy houses and leave cruel and dangerous petting zoos in the “bad idea” file.
Jennifer O’Connor
Senior Writer PETA Foundation
Norfolk, VA
10-9
Pretty certain that the institute will ensure the animals are treated ethically. That should soothe your conscious. People are responsible for their own health.
is that your hopefulness speaking, or do you have the inside scoop? your last point is mostly correct, but, sometimes that is not so black and white. i’ll remind us of maple leaf foods poisoning people so bad that there were a number of deaths as well as some wide spread illness due to their selling people listeria poisoned meat.
Let me guess, you are also against having pets such as cats and dogs, and all farms should be done away with. Keep your opinions in Norfolk, Virginia please and thank you.
I’ve read news about kids being killed while in a bouncy house or at a monster truck show. Haven’t seen anything about a child being brutalized by a rabbit or goat at a petting zoo. George
Have you heard of all the cats and dogs that have been hurt or killed crossing the street? perhaps overpasses? ………woke nutbar?
curious – the author’s points reference e coli being passed from the animals to people, and, that the animals may not always be well treated by the petting zoo owners. given that these zoos, along with other zoos, are about turning a profit for the owners…well, we know how the money first routine typically works out for living beings. but, for some reason, three entries go hyperbolic and even project absurdities upon the writer that were not nearly points made in the letter.