A look at the complaints made against Wooten’s Animal Sanctuary

WINK News has taken a look into the history of complaints at Wooten’s Animal Sanctuary after a tiger mauled an employee.

In April 2018, a Wooten’s Animal Sanctuary employee entered an animal enclosure without permission, just like the employee who the tiger mauled.

The difference is, in 2018, the employee went into a raccoon enclosure with a nine-year-old boy so he could pet the animal. The raccoon bit the child, who ended up being OK. The raccoon was euthanized.

The USDA has inspected Wooten’s 20 times since 2014. This was all while the FWC got complaints ranging from one lion being too thin to one lion that was too fat to a lion having scabs all over its face. FWC also received complaints that the tigers were underweight, the big cat enclosure was too small, and the drinking water was dirty.

Most of the complaints WINK News found filed against Wooten’s were found to be either unfounded or minor and corrected, but don’t say that to Carole Baskin of Tiger King fame.

“Nasty little roadside zoos like Wooten’s, they end up hurting the public because people don’t know how to handle these animals and shouldn’t have to. They don’t belong in cages,” said Baskin.