After four days of testimony pitting U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials against Cricket Hollow Zoo owners, an administrative law judge will decide later this spring if the roadside zoo near Manchester, Iowa will retain its federal license.
The hearing before the administrative law judge was held in Davenport beginning Tuesday (1/24) and included testimony from USDA Veterinarian and Inspector Heather Cole, Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship Compliance Investigator Doug Anderson, zoo owners Tom and Pamela Sellner and Robert Gibbens, Western Regional Director of the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service in Fort Collins, CO.
The USDA complaint against Cricket Hollow runs more than 20 pages and cites dozens of violations of the Animal Welfare Acts (AWA) by the zoo in 2014 and 2015.
