Stump Hill Farm (Huntsman, Cindy)

USDA License #31-C-0050, 6633 Klick Rd., Massillon, OH 44646

 

Re: the tigers bred by Stump Hill Farm and sold to Massillon High School.

“After Obie spends a single season in Massillon and then becomes a free agent, he either goes to private animal sanctuaries that must assume these costs over time, or he goes to some horrid roadside zoo, or perhaps he’s sold into a canned hunting operation or to a wildlife parts dealer, so that tiger bones or penis can be sold for thousands of dollars. In just about every case, it’s a bad outcome for the tigers or the people who are enlisted to care for them.

 

Many Obies have been provided by Stump Hill Farms, a grossly substandard private menagerie with a long list of serious Animal Welfare Act violations, including citations for repeated failure to maintain and provide secure tiger enclosures, unsafe handling of a juvenile lion during public exhibition, declawing a juvenile tiger (a painful procedure that leads to chronic health problems), failure to provide veterinary care, and failure to vaccinate animals or even conduct routine parasite exams. After football season, some Obies have been returned to Stump Hill Farm or sent to Tiger Ridge Exotics, which has a similarly deplorable record of animal care.

 

It’s time to permanently bench this outdated, inhumane, dangerous, and costly tradition.” Mike Markarian  http://hslf.typepad.com/

Does the high school not know that white tigers are all inbred and thus suffer birth defects and mental disorders?  Is that really the image they want as a mascot?

 

Stump Hill Farm has failed to meet minimal federal standards for the care of animals used in exhibition as

established in the Animal Welfare Act (AWA). The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has cited Stump Hill

Farm for failure to provide veterinary care, repeated failure to provide environmental enrichment and

minimum space to primates kept in solitary confinement and suffering from psychological distress, failure to

provide shelter from inclement weather, filthy and foul-smelling enclosures, failure to provide drinking water,

failure to maintain enclosures, and improper waste disposal. Stump Hill Farm buys animals at auction and

prematurely removes infant animals from their mothers for commercial purposes. Jack Hanna has used

infant animals from Stump Hill Farm for appearances on Good Morning America. Contact PETA for

documentation.

 

April 18, 2007: The USDA cited Stump Hill Farm for failure to have a responsible party present so that an animal

welfare inspection could be conducted.

 

July 13, 2005: The USDA cited Stump Hill Farm for failure to provide perimeter fencing adequate to prevent physical

contact between the animals inside the enclosure and animals or people outside the perimeter fence. The USDA also

cited Stump Hill Farm for failure to provide perimeter fencing that adequately served as a secondary containment

system in the event of an animal escape.

 

December 12, 2001: The USDA cited Stump Hill Farm for failure to correct previously identified noncompliances of

not providing minimum space, environmental enrichment, and veterinary care. Stump Hill Farm was also cited for

having filthy cages, for failure to maintain records of acquisition, and for failure to have a complete program of

veterinary care. An Egyptian fruit bat with a reddish-pink enlargement on the left wing joint area had not been

examined, diagnosed, or treated by a veterinarian. Records were incomplete for 21 Egyptian fruit bats and one sugar

glider acquired from an unlicensed source. The fruit bats were left in a dog kennel; the inspector wrote, “[T]he animals

need space enough for the passive and pregnant females to hide from more aggressive ones. The cage lacks space

to allow flight and exercise with freedom of movement.” The lemur enclosure had an “accumulation of urine and

brownish fecal matter”; the inspector also noted, “Animals are in contact with excreta. More frequent cleaning is

needed.” The new enclosure for the chimpanzee “does not provide sufficient space.” The environmental enrichment

plan for primates was incomplete and was not being followed; the inspector wrote, “The infants that are hand reared

are not addressed and how the special attention is given after they are separated from the mother.” The chimpanzee

named Toot is still isolated from other primates, and the environmental enrichment plan does not address his special

needs.

 

November 20, 2001: The USDA cited Stump Hill Farm for failure to correct a previously identified noncompliance of

not providing minimum space to a chimpanzee. Stump Hill Farm was also cited for failure to provide access to

veterinary care records and the primate enrichment plan.

 

Source:  http://www.mediapeta.com/peta/pdf/Stump-Hill-Farm-pdf.pdf

 

Selling Tiger Cubs to School for Mascots

 

The following is the transcript from a radio interview with Alan Rabinowitz and other tiger experts at

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-12-12/concerns-over-endangered-tiger-population/transcript

 

REHM

11:55:11
All right. And finally to Massillon, Ohio. Veronica, you’re on the air.

VERONICA

11:55:17
Yes, hello everyone. I just wanted to have your guests, Diane, respond to an unusual circumstance that happens in Massillon, Ohio where I live. I’ll paraphrase it by first saying that I don’t think the people of Massillon are bad people but I don’t think they are understand what they’re doing is necessarily appropriate, the best thing that they’re doing for tigers. What it is, the Massillon football team gets a new tiger — about one to two, sometimes, three tiger cubs a year because they want to have a team tiger cub at each of their football games because they name it Obie and Obie is their mascot.

REHM

11:56:02
And what happens…

VERONICA

11:56:03
(unintelligible) …

REHM

11:56:04
…what happens at the end of the season? What happens when the cub grows?

VERONICA

11:56:11
Yes. And that’s a big, big issue. (unintelligible) …

REHM

11:56:14
But what happens? Tell us.

VERONICA

11:56:16
Yeah, I’m going to tell you. Locally, they buy — they purchase the tigers and the past 20 years, they’ve purchased 42 tiger cubs and from the Stump Hill Farm, which is a place that sells and breeds exotic animals for profit.