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Roswell’s Spring River Zoo received several citations for non-compliant items on recent inspections from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but the zoo director said the staff was already aware of the deficiencies and are working to rectify them, including finding a new home for a longhorn steer.
The inspection was a resumption of regular inspections from the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service but was also prompted by concerns from an outside group, Spring River Zoo Director John Wright said in an interview with the Roswell Daily Record.
That outside group was People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a spokesperson for the animal-rights group said.
Spring River Zoo has had no inspections citing non-compliant items since late 2017, according to USDA online records. Those include inspections conducted on Aug. 15, 2017, Nov. 27, 2017, Nov. 15, 2018, and June 26, 2019. No inspection was conducted in 2020.
The most serious of five non-compliant items in a July 15 inspection concerned the care of a male longhorn steer named Geronimo. The inspection report noted he had overgrown, chipped and curling hooves. A follow-up inspection July 23 reported the steer was in the same physical condition.
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“The animal often drags the tips of the hooves on the ground as it walks, and a slight stumble is seen intermittently,” the report, prepared by Tamila Stott, veterinary medical officer with the USDA, said.
The report noted the physical condition of the steer, including decreased volume of the brisket — or lower chest — loose skin, visible vertebrae and muscle depletion in the hindquarters.
Wright, who started as director of the zoo in June, said Geronimo’s hooves did need trimming but did not cause a serious health issue for the 20-year-old steer.
“My assessment of it was they were long. They affected his gait but not dramatically. His body condition was thin,” he said. “Body conditions are going to change. You’re losing muscle mass, it’s just a typical process. The animal was able to move around normally.”
Geronimo’s age did cause concern for how to to care for his hooves, Wright said.
“The challenge we had is, in order to rectify the situation, the animal would probably have to be immobilized,” he said, clarifying that meant anesthesia.
“You do not want to electively immobilize an older animal, especially in the heat of summer,” he said.
The zoo’s veterinarian had requested a chute be provided to treat Geronimo and the zoo’s two other longhorns without anesthesia.
That equipment was put in process, Wright said, before his arrival at the zoo, but was delayed due to the pandemic and city staffing issues. A new shelter with a chute and trailer access is under construction in the ranch heritage exhibit, but trying to get it completed by the USDA’s timeline of July 23 to care for Geronimo’s hooves didn’t work, Wright said.
“Ethically, could we do what needs to get done and run the risk of stressing the animal out?” Wright said. “We decided to find a home for him off-grounds and let him live out the rest of his life.”
Wright said in a follow-up email the city would prefer not to publicize Geronimo’s new home.
“We want to keep the location quiet as we don’t want outside entities trying to locate him and harassing the adopter,” he wrote.
Part of the delay for Geronimo’s transfer after the July 23 deadline set by USDA was the city needing to meet a requirement that cattle must have a brand in order to be shipped, and also taking time to acclimate Geronimo to the trailer that would transport him, Wright said.
Rebecca Smudzinski, PETA senior captive wildlife specialist, said removing the animal from the zoo still showed inaction, noting that eight days after USDA cited the zoo for failing to obtain the necessary equipment to treat Geronimo, a follow-up inspection determined “he was still in the same condition, showing that they weren’t able to obtain the equipment needed to treat him.”
PETA was not aware the steer had been rehomed prior to an interview Friday with the Roswell Daily Record.
PETA has voiced concerns about the Roswell zoo in the past, especially about its black bears. In April 2017, the organization first made an offer to the city to donate $10,000 for improved enclosures if it would allow PETA to relocate the two bears to a sanctuary and build a more natural enclosure for the two mountain lions the zoo had at the time.
Actress Ali MacGraw, a New Mexico resident and PETA supporter, lent her voice with a plea for the animals.
The city rejected the offer, but over the next year, worked with an architect to form a master plan for the zoo that was adopted by the Roswell City Council in March 2018 and endorsed by PETA.
The organization renewed it’s $10,000 offer in a June letter to Mayor Dennis Kintigh, which was again rejected in a response from City Manager Joe Neeb.
The zoo “had initially shown promise three years ago when they had stepped up saying they were going to do this, they have this master plan to improve conditions and care for the animals,” Smudzinski said.
“Our hope was to give them time to make these improvements, but when they reopened this winter, we were able to see the conditions hadn’t improved,” she said.
Smudzinski, who lives in Taos, said she drove to Roswell and documented conditions of the animals.
“I didn’t speak with anyone when I was there, but I was able to document the conditions and see firsthand that these animals are still in poor condition and still in barren environments,” she said.
The June 21 letter to Kintigh, which was also sent to all 10 city councilors, outlined the organization’s concerns, including the concrete housing for the bears, cramped exhibits for other animals, the “mostly barren” new enclosure for the mountain lion, and various health issues. The three-page letter was posted on PETA’s website.
“After reviewing public records relating to veterinary and animal care at the zoo, it appears that not only has the facility failed to make promised improvements, but it has no plans to make those improvements in the foreseeable future,” the letter, written by Brittany Peet, PETA’s deputy general counsel for captive animal law enforcement, said.
Some of those issues were also cited in the USDA inspection. The general facilities were listed as critical non-compliant items, with the escapes of a beaver and a black bear specified.
In October, the zoo acquired a pair of beavers. One of them escaped in late October from a temporary exhibit by digging under fences. The beaver has not been found, but Wright said the zoo has received reports of beaver activity along the Spring River. The second beaver was moved to a permanent exhibit that prevents digging after it was completed. The USDA report noted the correction was made before the inspection.
In July, one of a pair of black bears being held temporarily for the Alamogordo zoo escaped its enclosure by pulling aside a layer of chain link material on the roof. After seeing the bear on top of the enclosure, the zoo staff notified New Mexico Game and Fish and a veterinarian, and the bear was sedated and returned to the enclosure an hour later. The enclosure was reinforced and an electric hot wire installed. Zoo staff notified USDA of the escape and the report noted corrections were made prior to the inspection.
A loose section of chain-link fence on the elk and deer enclosure was listed as a non-critical item.
The remainder of the citations in the report note the zoo does not have a documented exercise plan for the wolf-hybrid dog nor an enhancement plan for the three lemurs.
Wright said the staff does regularly exercise the dog and provide enrichment for the lemurs, but has not done a good job of documenting the activities. That is something he said he is working with the staff to change.
“It’s all the sort of things being done. It wasn’t really a collective, thought-out documented process, and so we’re working through that as well now, to develop that. And not just develop it, but implement it and document it, and it’s not going to be just for primates, it will be for pretty much every animal out there,” he said.
City/RISD reporter Juno Ogle can be reached at 575-622-7710, ext. 205, or reporter04@rdrnews.com.
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