My Letter To PETA

Hi, I'd like to report a really awful zoo I visited near Myrtle Beach, SC, called Waccatee Zoo. I'm not sure what zoo regulations are, and if this place is considered bad enough to shut down, but this place was, quite frankly, a hellhole.
The animals appeared uncared for, sickly and/or miserable in most cases. They had two lions, the lioness of which was wheezing constantly, in a cage the size that my local zoo [Salisbury Zoo] uses for a BOBCAT, approximately the size of someone's living room. Same with the tigers.

The 'habitats' were simple, dusty cages with no plants or anything remotely resembling nature. They pride themselves on not being a 'concrete jungle' but the most rustic part is where the patrons walk. You wander through a bunch of woods to eventually view lemurs being kept in a horse barn. The place looked like a remodeled farm. I feel like it might have been a nice place twenty years ago, and the upkeep has just gone incredibly downhill since.

Another 'feature' for the customers is that you can feed the non-aggressive animals, a practice I feel probably isn't safe for the animals or humans, but I indulged in because part of me was afraid that was the only time the animals might eat!! I didn't see any visible food or water bowls in any of the cages. As I said before, they are dusty, desolate cages, most of the time with nothing in them but the featured animal, so it isn't likely they have the bowl stashed somewhere.

One particularly heartbreaking experience was a lone donkey in some random room by himself. He was in one of the empty cages, hee-hawing sadly before we entered. My party and I fed him by hand, and one of my companions reached up through a hole in the fence to pet him for a bit. The donkey actually followed us along the fence until we were out of sight, which leads me to believe these animals are either starved for food or attention or both.

I think those are all the major points; please investigate this glorified petting-zoo!

Thanks, Meredith