Following a complaint from PETA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has begun the process of terminating the federal license of notorious wild-animal exhibitor Animals of Montana (AOM). This shameless profiteer kept animals in filthy and appalling conditions and repeatedly put them and the public in danger. We urge everyone to avoid supporting seedy operations like AOM by shunning any form of entertainment that exploits animals.

PETA’s complaint pointed out that because AOM has violated state and federal laws pertaining to transportation, ownership, neglect, or welfare of animals—including 22 violations of Montana’s captive-animal regulations that led to the permanent revocation of the facility’s roadside menagerie permit—the USDA could and should terminate AOM’s federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) license. The agency has now taken the first step toward doing so by filing an order to show cause why AOM’s license shouldn’t be terminated.

For over two decades, the owner of Animals of Montana, Troy Hyde, has trucked animals all over the country to be used as living props in movies and advertisements.

He’s racked up a laundry list of animal welfare and employee safety violations, including the following:

• Allowing a tiger to escape during a photo shoot, then directing a member of the public to threaten the animal with a weed whacker
• Placing employees in dangerous proximity to bears, leading to a fatal attack on a worker

The USDA terminated AOM’s license in 2009 for violating the Endangered Species Act and the Lacey Act but granted Hyde a new license two years later. Since then, AOM has accrued 29 more violations of state and federal laws, including the following:

• Keeping wolves in unsanitary and severely crowded cages
• Failing to provide wolves with drinking water (According to reports, the wolves “were either out of water, water was froze [sic], or what was left in the bottom was brownish-black from saturation by fecal matter.”)
• Allowing a fisher to escape (The animal was never found.)
• Failing to properly secure the cages of potentially dangerous animals, including a bear, a coyote, a bobcat, a Siberian lynx, a black leopard, an arctic wolf, and a gray wolf
• Failing to clean a cross fox’s cage for several days, leading to the accumulation of “a significant amount of feces”

What You Can Do to Help Animals in Roadside Zoos

Across the U.S., many unaccredited zoos and roadside menageries have long histories of harming animals or otherwise violating the AWA. Bears, big cats, and others at these tourist traps face many hardships: They’re often denied proper veterinary care, clean and safe enclosures, and adequate shelter from the wind and extreme temperatures.