PETA Asks Department of Agriculture to Ban Petting Zoos

If you take your kids to a petting zoo, they might come home with more than just cotton candy and a balloon. In April 2001, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a warning in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report about the dangers of E. coli infection at petting zoos. The report detailed the cases of 56 people—most of them children—who had contracted E. coli from petting zoos on two farms over a period of a few months. The CDC’s guidelines called for more hand-washing facilities and a ban on hand-to-mouth contact when close to animals. PETA sent a letter to then-Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman asking that the disease-spreading exhibits be banned.

Despite the CDC’s recommendations, little has changed. Outbreaks of illness associated with petting zoos continue to occur all over the U.S. and Canada. In April 2005, an outbreak of E. coli bacteria in Florida that was responsible for infections in 26 people (including 23 children) was linked to animals from petting zoos at three fairs. In December 2004, North Carolina health officials reported 43 confirmed and 108 suspected cases of E. coli infection in people who had visited a petting zoo at the state fair.

Canadian health officials issued a warning in August 2004 after six children became ill with suspected E. coli infections following visits to petting zoos in British Columbia. The British Columbia Centre for Disease Control warned that children under the age of 6 are especially vulnerable to complications from E. coli infections associated with close contact with animals in petting zoos.

These are only a few examples—PETA’s “Health Hazards of Petting Zoos” factsheet details many more.

It is clear that the CDC’s recommendations don’t go far enough, so PETA has asked the CDC to take a stronger position.

Health risks are not just limited to petting zoos. Traveling exhibits, in which animals are more prone to illness because of the high level of stress that they must endure during transport, also pose a threat to children. Exhibits at shopping malls and fairs that allow children to feed, ride, or have their pictures taken with animals are public-health disasters waiting to happen.