Reports: Animals lived in poor conditions, endured delayed treatments at Edgecombe County zoo
If you follow Zach and Mychal Storer on social media, you'll quickly notice they are animal lovers. In Arizona, they run a business called Animal People, where they educate the public about animals, teach classes, and more.
They moved to Edgecombe County in February 2023 to work at It's a Zoo Life.
Quickly, they found they disagreed with the type of animal care given there.
"What I noticed was just a lack of specialized care for very specialized animals, very exotic animals, especially primates. Those are very difficult animals. And if you don't know what you're doing, you're going to have problems, and they're having big problems," Zach Storer said.
The United States Department of Agriculture conducts frequent reviews of zoos, such as It's a Zoo Life.
We obtained inspection reports dating back to 2018 that reveal dozens of citations, including poor living conditions for the animals, understaffing, and injured animals with delayed treatment.
Almost every review cited missing animal records and a lack of documentation that the USDA requires.
The list of citations in the most recent review in February 2024 is seven pages long.
In one case, a ringtail lemur was found dead in its enclosure with no consultation from the attending veterinarian, which is a requirement by the Animal Welfare Act.
The documents also reveal multiple zoo-goers injured by animals, including just last October when a lemur injured a patron's face.
The owner of It's a Zoo Life, Bobbie Jo Abrams, was unwilling to interview us.
On the phone, she told us the zoo takes in a lot of rescues, which means they may not have the required documentation.
We asked about reports showing a lack of water in animal enclosures. She said the large property could be complex to manage, and it's always possible the animals could have knocked over its water around the time of the inspection.
Abrams referred WRAL to her lawyer, who did not respond to our request for comment.
The Storers said these issues are why they decided to leave.
"We moved our family across the country because we care and we wanted to help. We wanted to change. We left because we just couldn't agree on animal care," Mychal Storer said.
Mychal Storer has worked for the Los Angeles Zoo and is certified in animal care.
The Storers said they believe that understaffing and lack of training are the root causes of poor animal care.
"I think nobody with formal training is by design," Zach Storer said. "It's like they don't want anybody to come in who has too much knowledge or training because then the problems would be glaringly obvious."
The Storers said, at the end of the day, they care about the animals.
"I want them to succeed because when they succeed, the animals succeed."
The Storers said they reached out to the USDA with their concerns.
When we contacted the USDA, the agency pointed us back to its inspection reports.
