HSUS Says Man who Claimed Conspiracy in Zanesville Has His Own Animal Issues

Last month the president of the United States Zoological Association, Joe Schreibvogel, spoke out on the October exotic animal release in Muskingum County saying he didn’t believe Terry Thompson killed himself, he thought Thompson was murdered as part of a conspiracy to ban exotic animal ownership.

Schreibvogel has also traveled to the state to lobby against Ohio’s pending exotic animal legislation.

On Wednesday the Humane Society of the United States released the results of an undercover investigation done at GW Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma, where Schreibvogel is the president.

The Humane Society says it conducted the investigation in the Fall and Winter of 2011, by having an investigator pose as an employee at the animal park. In the videos released Wednesday employees of GW can be seen punching and whipping animals. The Humane Society says during the investigation five tigers died at the facility- including a 6-year-old tiger named Hobbes that died without receiving veterinary care and a 6-week-old cub that had to be euthanized after receiving a head injury at the park owner’s home.

The undercover video also shows a tiger cub knock a child down and bite him. According to the Humane Society, the USDA’s current regulations say the public should only have contact with cubs from 8 to 12 weeks old, but the tiger cub used was 20-weeks-old.

The HSUS says it has filed complaints with multiple federal, state and local organizations over the conditions at the park.