Animal control sought 19 charges against former petting zoo owner. Why weren’t any filed?

Don Miller, who owned Debbie Dolittle’s Petting Zoo in Tacoma until 2021, voluntarily relinquished his license with the U.S. Department of Agriculture earlier this month. The license had allowed him to display wild or exotic animals at his farm in Spanaway.

Miller told The News Tribune he sold the farm in 2020 but had been waiting for the buyer to receive necessary development permits before departing and closing City Goat Farm and Zoo, which had been a private, outdoor animal-viewing experience. It opened during the COVID-19 pandemic and previously was only used as a place where animals could roam when not at Debbie Dolittle’s, which is roughly three miles away.

“It’s just time to take a break,” Miller said of himself.

The decision to close the farm and cancel his exhibitor’s license was not influenced, he said, by a letter recently submitted to the USDA. People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals urged the agency on April 24 to terminate Miller’s credential. Miller said he was unaware of the letter.

In support of its request, PETA cited the findings of a more than two-year Pierce County Animal Control investigation into the petting zoo and farm under Miller’s ownership, for which Miller was not charged.

To be clear, the probe was not related in any way to the petting zoo’s current ownership.

The investigation, prompted by a PETA complaint over a sloth’s falling death at Debbie Dolittle’s in October 2019, documented the deaths of 17 mostly young animals over a roughly three-year period — a dozen within 12 months — and uncovered an alleged “multitude of animal welfare related crimes,” according to law enforcement records obtained by The News Tribune.

Among the allegations:

▪ Miller and others improperly cared for the sloth and other animals.

▪ Miller failed to feed or keep warm two “bottle baby” otters, who soon after died, during their transport from Texas in January 2019.

▪ Miller arranged for an ill camel to be euthanized by a suspended veterinarian.

▪ Miller appeared to have sought flesh-eating beetles in advance of a sick tortoise’s death, instead of seeking veterinary care, in a plan to keep its shell for “an art project.”

Animal Control, which is a division of the Sheriff’s Department, also alleged Miller tampered with evidence to conceal misconduct and that two veterinarians quit working with the petting zoo after about a year due to concerns over animal care.

“Based upon all of the facts and evidence reviewed in my investigation, in general every species of animal reviewed had a representative member showing evidence of some questionable practice or issue that caused concern,” Animal Control officer Patrick Cassin wrote in a September 2022 report.

The investigation, which hasn’t been previously reported, culminated with recommendations for 19 criminal charges against Miller and nearly as many against two then-employees, including felony first-degree animal abuse for the deaths of eight animals.

The county’s Prosecuting Attorney’s Office declined to file charges, citing insufficient evidence and other issues with the case. Miller adamantly denied any wrongdoing, including animal abuse, and described being unjustly targeted by both Animal Control and the USDA.

“They’re both big bullies, and they have been since Day 1 with me,” Miller told The News Tribune.

He called the allegations false and assumptions, claiming that no one ever interviewed him for the investigation, which he believed was also spurred by a complaint from an ex-employee previously fired for not showing up to work.

Miller pointed to some Animal Control findings as lacking context. For instance, the investigation noted that the petting zoo held after-hours “adult nights,” allowing patrons to drink beer or wine and interact with animals, including sloths. Miller said the events, which occurred prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, were restrained, fully staffed and limited to 25 people. Animals were interacted with only if they wished to be, according to Miller.

In response to another finding documented in the investigation, Miller said he couldn’t recall any injuries during swim-with-an-otter encounters on his farm. Animal Control alleged there had been a large number of injuries sustained by people and the animals, although it didn’t specify a time frame except to say they were recent as of its September 2022 report.

“Not everybody is innocent, we know that, but I’m highly regulated. I don’t get to make mistakes,” Miller said. “I think animal care for everybody in this world is about education and working with people, not trying to take people down.”

Miller, who bought the petting zoo in 2015, said his businesses followed the rules, did its due diligence and listened to veterinarians. Asked what he thought it meant that prosecutors rejected filing charges, Miller responded: “Animal Control is wrong.”

The lack of prosecution was “mind-blowing” to Klayton Rutherford, manager of research and content with PETA’s Captive Animal Law Enforcement department. He told The News Tribune that statute of limitations had expired on 14 recommended charges and would run out for five others within the next year, beginning next month when two become time-barred.

“Across the country, animals are often not given their day in court,” Rutherford said, adding he had never before seen as thorough of an Animal Control investigation. “In this case, Animal Control did its job. Everyone else in Pierce County needs to do their job too, now.”

In response to the criticism, county Prosecuting Attorney’s Office spokesperson Adam Faber underscored that evidence was simply insufficient.

“When making charging decisions, deputy prosecutors weigh whether there is enough evidence to prove the case at trial and the strength of potential defenses,” he said in an email.

Animal cruelty cases were important to the office, which had charged 161 counts of first- or second-degree animal cruelty since 2022, according to Faber.

Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Sgt. Darren Moss declined to comment on the charging decision but said there had been “a legitimate cause for concern” about the petting zoo that warranted investigation.

“Our guys had probable cause for everything they were doing,” Moss said, including searching Miller’s properties.

Investigation and a raid

Animal Control began looking into Debbie Dolittle’s around February 2020. A few months earlier, a 1-year-old sloth named Malia died there after she fell from a climbing structure. In May 2020, officers executed a search warrant at the petting zoo, Miller’s house at the farm and his office, seizing five animals.

Miller said the animals were taken from among the more than 100 that were at Debbie Dolittle’s.

“Drug dealers don’t get raided the way I got raided,” Miller said, recalling that officers had flipped stuff upside down, knocked things over and shuffled through papers.

Animal Control removed two sloths, two armadillos and a binturong (a bearcat), as well as phones, computers and paperwork, according to an Aug. 31, 2020, investigative report by the USDA, which had been apprised of Animal Control’s probe and was also looking into Malia’s death.

Two animals later died after being seized from Miller. Following a two-year legal battle, which raised questions about the seizure, a county District Court judge sided with Miller’s petition to return the remaining animals, finding there wasn’t a “likelihood of suffering future neglect or abuse and that the animals do not need to be restored to health,” according to a copy of the court order Miller provided to The News Tribune.

As Animal Control’s probe continued, Malia’s death contributed to a $7,500 fine in 2021 from the USDA, which cited City Goat Farm and Zoo — as the licensee then operating both Debbie Dolittle’s and the farm — for seven violations of the Animal Welfare Act.

The USDA found nearly 80 people had been injured in less than a year during animal encounters; it attributed the deaths of Malia and an anteater, at least in part, to the licensee’s failure to demonstrate adequate experience and knowledge about the species; and it noted a fox’s leg was amputated after the animal was badly hurt under the petting zoo’s care.

R. Andre Bell, a USDA spokesperson, declined to talk specifics but said the agency’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service takes its mission to enforce the Animal Welfare Act “very seriously.”

“When we find issues that bring facilities out of compliance with the (Animal Welfare Act) regulations, we work hard to bring them back into compliance as quickly as possible,” Bell said in a statement. “Our investigative process for individuals and/or businesses found out of compliance with the AWA may lead to an enforcement action such as letters of warning, monetary penalties, license suspensions and revocations.”

Miller said he disagreed with the federal agency’s citations. For instance, the fox’s injury was an accident related to an enclosure ramp and immediately addressed, he said. The reported injuries to people, which he said the petting zoo tracked and often were the result of visitors not following the rules, could have been as relatively innocuous as a goat biting a shirt. Still, he conceded, “one injury is too much.”

Roughly six months after the USDA fined Miller, it renewed City Goat Farm and Zoo’s exhibitor’s license, records show, in a move also criticized by PETA.

“It’s further evidence that the USDA is pretty terrible at doing its job,” Rutherford said.

Prosecutor review

The county’s Prosecuting Attorney’s Office received Animal Control’s case against Miller and two employees in September 2022, according to a prosecution memo.

Animal Control recommended 19 charges against Miller within the statute of limitations. It also offered seven additional charges for consideration that it acknowledged had statute issues. Those time-barred charges ultimately accounted for eight of the 17 animal deaths identified during the investigation, a deputy prosecutor wrote in the November 2022 memo.

The deaths of the “baby bottle” otters and alleged euthanization of a sick camel named Mona by a suspended veterinarian who later had his license revoked for unprofessional conduct were both connected to charges that were barred from prosecution due to how much time had passed.

Malia’s death was the earliest one not yet beyond the statute of limitations. A necropsy report cited blunt-force trauma to the head as the cause of death and made additional findings: emaciation, “serious” atrophy of fat and a condition that indicated the sloth was in “a severely debilitated physical condition and experiencing a high level of stress,” according to the prosecutor’s memo.

A veterinarian who had treated Malia and was interviewed by Animal Control in February 2020 didn’t believe there had been any intentional harm or mistreatment to the sloth despite a necropsy report that revealed “evidence of mishandling,” the memo said.

Animal Control’s investigation cited that same veterinarian in May 2022 as opining that he suspected animals at the petting zoo were suffering from animal cruelty, records show, although there was no mention of a sloth. The News Tribune unsuccessfully tried to contact the veterinarian for this story.

A week before Malia died, she had been examined and shown to be apparently healthy, according to the memo.

“This finding is not indicative of long-term abuse that could have resulted in the sloth’s fall,” the deputy prosecutor wrote.

In order to file a first-degree animal abuse charge, as Animal Control had recommended, the state would have had to prove criminal negligence and that the sloth had been starved, dehydrated or suffocated.

“Animal control has been pushing hard on the STARVATION element. They feel that the sloth was not fed enough, became weak, and fell from a tree,” the memo said. “There is no evidence to support that conclusion. Further, animal control believes that STARVATION equates giving a lesser quantity of food, not nutritional deficit.”

In other instances, the deputy prosecutor arrived at similar conclusions: The evidence was lacking to prove the recommended charges.

The assessment applied, among others, to two kangaroos who died after getting neutered; a camel who a veterinarian recalled had heart and kidney issues possibly related to a genetic defect or deficient diet; an otter who passed due to a severe infection; and a goat believed to have had severe pneumonia when it died.

In some cases, the memo noted that necropsies — a term for an autopsy of an animal — had not been performed, but the absence of those reports hadn’t appeared to hinder prosecutorial decision-making.

Cassin wrote in a September 2022 report that the 17 animals whose deaths were recorded all appeared to have been within the first quarter of their estimated life span.

“None of the deceased animals appear to have been in the possession of the zoo for approximately more than a year, and certainly none of the animals were geriatric or near the end of their natural life span,” he wrote.

Under new ownership

Debbie Dolittle’s Petting Zoo has twice changed hands since Miller ran it. He sold the business in June 2021 to long-time employee Malisa Cloud — one of the two others who Animal Control had also recommended for charges that were rejected. Cloud didn’t respond to messages seeking comment for this story.

In January 2023, the petting zoo was bought by its current owner Richard Shanebrook, who said in an interview that he had worked with exotic animals for more than two decades and long held “a dream and passion” to share animals with others.

“Animals are therapy,” he said. “And I think that’s a big reason why people can fall in love with a petting zoo, any type of zoo.”

Shanebrook, who said that animal care, customer safety and education were top priorities, expressed big plans for Debbie Dolittle’s, including a major expansion and improvements, with the ultimate goal being to pass down the zoo to his four young children someday.

He said he had known of Miller from the industry, but not well. After purchasing the zoo, he allowed Miller to use the zoo’s Facebook page to post about the farm, they seasonally exchanged a penguin and Macaw between the two businesses and then he bought some animals from Miller when he closed the farm.

Rutherford suggested it was a “red flag” that there had been any connection between the two at all. He also pointed to three USDA inspection reports related to the zoo since September. They collectively described “non-critical” issues involving a few animal habitats, a bison’s overgrown hooves, facility record availability and the fact that a penguin was solitary, USDA records show.

Shanebrook said he welcomed checks and balances but acknowledged that working with the federal agency could be stressful because its inspection criteria can be inconsistent and it often doesn’t provide the exact specifications of what it’s looking for.

“If I could build a relationship with PETA, I would,” he said. “When they see how much I care about the animals, they would back off.”

Meanwhile, all animals from the farm have been re-homed, according to Miller, except for a few that he said he held onto as pets.

Miller said he’s considering filing a lawsuit against the county over the animals it took from him while executing the search warrant four years ago. Not only had the investigation been a waste of taxpayer money, he said, it was costly to him: He claimed to have lost more than $400,000 in expected revenue from two sloths having been gone for two years and spent $50,000 fighting for custody of his animals in court.

The petting zoo had performed well before the pandemic. In June 2019, Miller reported in a text message that the zoo had made $790,000 year-to-date, according to the Animal Control investigation.

“If I didn’t have the money to be able to prove my case, I would have lost those animals,” Miller told The News Tribune, later adding: “I won’t allow bullies to try to take me down.”

For PETA, Animal Control’s findings had been enough for the USDA to have pulled Miller’s license. But their request was about more than preventing Miller from exhibiting animals, according to Rutherford. He said it also would have offered a necessary act of accountability that sent a strong message to similar facilities in the region: “If they don’t clean up their act, they’re next.”