One more piece of news I forgot: two White-Tailed Deer were born. I made this so anyone interested can see more about the changes in the zoo's collection: DeYoung Family Zoo - DeYoung Family Zoo Species List August 2018
A male Spotted Hyena cub was born three months ago: DeYoung Family Zoo celebrates Mother's Day with hyena gender reveal
Updates from my visit today: The entire primate area is closed off behind a fence, including the Leopard and Patagonian Cavy exhibits. The Chimpazees have a brand new exhibit! It looks much better than the old one but as it was blocked off just like the rest of the primates I couldn't get a good look. Several new exhibits have been built in front of the pond by the Malayan Tigers. On contains three Emu chicks. One contains a pair of Red Kangaroos (a new species for the zoo), plus their joey. Another is a wooden box containing numerous tortoises - mostly Sulcatas but one Red-footed as well. According to a keeper, those tortoises were left to them in the previous owner's will, and now the zoo is kind of stuck with them. This is probably a good thing though, as several of the tortoises look very unhealthy. The Central Bearded Dragon is now simply an animal ambassador, there is no longer an exhibit. The former Domestic Turkey exhibit is now home to Spotted Hyenas. The turkeys have moved in with the White-tailed Deer. The "Coyote Corncrib" is now home to two Dingoes who have barley have enough room to move. One of them is all black. Two White-tailed Deer were born. Three European Mouflon were born. A North American Porcupine was born. The American Badgers are gone and their exhibit is now home to a Striped Hyena. The former Striped Hyena exhibit is now closed off. An Alpaca was born. No more Binturong.
DeYoung is about to be in some major legal trouble. Most of the animals missing from Special Memories Zoo when authorities went to get them had been secretly transferred to DeYoung, with no paperwork, no records, no health inspections, and none of the required things needed for transferring endangered species across state lines. The animals include: 9 ring-tailed lemurs (EN) 1 celebes macaque (CR) 2 red ruffed lemurs (CR) 3 japanese macaques 2 lions 2 tigers 2 wolves 1 leopard There were also 2 lynx, 2 rhesus macaques, and 2 javan macaques transferred to East Texas Zoo/Franklin Drive-Thru Safari. ALDF is trying to get an order of protection to have all of the animals moved to sanctuaries. SMZdec1.pdf
That one I haven't seen mentioned yet. I'll update if it's found out. I imagine some likely ended up in private hands.
Here's the latest court document. Some of the animals that DeYoung received from SMZ are no longer there; it's unknown whether they died or were further passed along. Dec. 17 SMZ.pdf
The whole darn thing seems a bit misguided as I feel most of the animal stock was sent to secure and accredited facilities. This whole idea of "sanctuaries" is a myth of legendary proportions with no public access or oversight and checks and balances on what goes on in their collections. I demand a lawsuit on these sanctuaries and ADLF as well as how they are financed! They like to dig so much dirt and most of it is hearsay nonsense that it warrants a full investigation into their operations, finances, funding and "general activities". Mind you, I am all for good and proper NGO's as these organisations keep public offices and private companies and organisations in check through real purposed and purposeful action and projects et cetera. I just feel ADLF and their ilk serve no one whatsoever. If I would like to visit their places, I would not be able to and once they knew how and what I am and stand for get banned (which is what they do on their public platforms if you make comments they deem "unfit" or at least critical of their folks and actionables.
You might want to learn a bit more about these places. DeYoung isn't accredited by AZA or ZAA. They illegally took in animals from someone who had a whole bunch of charges against him for animal abuse, someone who left dozens of animals to starve and rot on his property, who did everything possible to keep his animals in harm's way. These animals that were supposed to be going somewhere else by court order. They had no paper work, no records, and all of the endangered species crossed state lines illegally. Some of those animals have either passed away or been illegally moved on. Do you really think a place like that is going to take great care of the animals? What is the point of caring about "checks and balances" and "oversight" if you're going to support places that willingly violate so many of those things? And hey, guess what, you can visit the main sanctuary these animals were supposed to go to. They have better hours than just about every zoo - 9am to sunset - and they're only closed 4 days a year. https://www.wildanimalsanctuary.org/copy-of-visit-us-1 I'm not a fan of most "sanctuaries" but these animals were supposed to go to places that have tons of oversight, are transparent with their work, and do take great care of their animals.
I'm curious where you got this? Special Memories had a lot of problems but it wasn't anywhere near that bad.
It's fairly common knowledge among those who have been following the case. After the fire, 16 additional carcasses were found that had no fire damage. Sign the Petition
I may have misread some of the previous comments on here and wrongfully assumed DeYoung's is a regular zoo (it is not). I do apologise I took a wrong turn there. I have since checked the AZA and ZAA records and affirmative the zoo is not accredited by either. Their "zoo" page really does not give much detail and 2 people cuddling a tiger does send out the completely wrong signal indeed. Looking further, I could not even find an inventory or map and just the mention of big cats blah blah. On face value, I could not make up my mind left, right or center. My question: Is the place by all accounts just another road side zoo or am I it not doing justice in that respect? I did a quick read up of the sanctuary and their enclosures seem fine and all well and good. As I am strapped for time right now, I was wondering what the general purpose of the sanctuary is as I was a bit mystified as to what they wrote about mission and all. My question: Are they in it to combat the road side and zillion dollar industry around road side zoos and big cat holders in substandard conditions or something other?
DeYound is by far the highest quality "roadside zoo" I have seen. It has a few truly awful enclosures but most enclosures are average and many are among the best I've ever seen. In the end I would say DeYoung's enclosures all average out and it is about equal to an AZA zoo in quality. As for their stance on keeping Tigers, they are not against the private ownership of Tigers but they clearly think there are some problem with how people keep them. This is the only roadside zoo I have ever seen that keeps its Tigers in something larger than a corncrib cage - in fact their Tiger exhibits are among the best I've seen.
So, how did the DeYoung's then got entangled in the shambles now defunct collection with huge animal welfare and operational deficiencies and interstate non-documented transport? Can you please also explain how interstate documentation works? Is it similar to any transports we get on the Continent and UK/GB and Ireland over vet testing, what tests, the animal bill of lading and further documentation as to identification and all?
The rest of the zoos in your area must be really, really bad if this place is something you think is "high quality". Wow.
I said "by far the highest quality "roadside zoo" I have seen". That's a bit different than high quality. I would say the zoos is about average overall. Nearly all of the awful exhibits in the gallery are gone and the ones that have replace them range from slightly below average to amazing. I agree, but what are you referring to here?
Your post regarding the quality of DeYoung only talked about enclosures; my point was that looking at the enclosures is not enough to determine what the overall husbandry/care quality of the facility is. It may be that you are more knowledgeable about them than just that, but it was the only aspect you mentioned so I wanted to caution to you, KB or anyone else that it wasn't necessarily a complete picture. I thought this was relevant considering the issue of illegal transfers across borders, improper paperwork, and some of the things TP mentioned are not related to enclosure size or quality.
I'm aware you're talking about roadside zoos. This isn't a high quality roadside zoo. Why don't you take photos to show us what it looks like, then?
