A wolf hybrid at Zoo’Opolis Exotic Petting World has been quarantined by county health officials after two people were injured at the facility over the Easter weekend, one of them a 9-month-old baby girl.
Bartholomew County Animal Control officers were sent to the facility at 12696 W. County Road 50S on Monday to obtain more information from the owners of the exotic animal facility, health department officials said.
In a letter sent to the facility on Monday, the Bartholomew County Health Department said it received an animal bite report regarding a bite or scratch incident involving the facility’s wolf hybrid with allegations from the girls’ family members that the animal "attacked" the 9-month-old baby, who had scrapes and cuts to her face and head.
The facility’s owner disputes the family’s account of the incident.
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"My wolf did not bite," Zoo’Opolis owner Kathleen Bowen said in a telephone interview Monday. "She (the 9-month-old) was injured by the grandmother when she hit the wolf in the face with her forearm and caused the abrasion. There was no bite. The wolf did not attack."
According to the health department’s report, the incident happened at 3:30 p.m. Friday at the facility.
"We were at a petting zoo (Zoo’Opolis) and we were told kids could play with the wolf," according to the victim statement on the health department report. "We sat her (the 9-month-old) beside the wolf and it attacked her and put her whole head in its mouth," the written statement to the health department said. "My mom pushed the wolf away and it bit her also."
Lucas Huff was visiting the facility with his wife and two sons, ages 4 and age 2, his in-laws, and a brother and sister-in-law who brought their 9-month old daughter Renea Robinson, he said.
"The organization’s members were keeping this animal (the wolf hybrid) in the basement of the house on the property and were allowing their guests to freely interact with it," Huff said. "Toward the end of our visit, my 9-month-old niece was attacked by this animal. The child’s grandmother had sat her down near it for a photo opportunity. No member of the staff present made any objections."
Huff said the attack ended quickly with the child’s grandmother grabbing the animal and removing its jaws from the baby’s head. The baby had scrapes and abrasions on her right cheek and open scratches on the back of her head, Huff said. However the report states that as the grandmother pushed the wolf hybrid away, it bit her also.
When Huff said the family needed to call the Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department, Huff said they were confronted by a woman who said she was the business owner, and who said the child was fine and had no open wounds. Although the family was initially blocked from leaving the basement area, Huff said, members of the staff came out and returned the entry fee to the family.
Huff said the family then called the child’s doctor and took her to a hospital emergency room for treatment. The baby is taking antibiotics as a precaution as the skin on her head was broken by the incident, Huff said.
The family has since learned from the health department that the wolf hybrid has been vaccinated as required by the state, meaning the child will not have to undergo rabies treatment, he said.
The quarantine for the wolf hybrid is in effect for 10 days, required in an area that has no means of escape, according to the health department’s notification to the facility. After the confinement period, the animal must be examined by a licensed vet from a health department list to determine if the animal is showing any signs of being rabid. The health department requires that the results of the exam be sent to the health department within four days after the last day of the quarantine.
Failure to comply with the letter’s requirements could result in the animal being impounded or fines, according to the letter.
Investigators have told the family that by filing the report with the county health department, the complaint is automatically sent to the sheriff’s department and Bartholomew County animal control, who have the option to include state officials in the investigation depending on what is found.
Bowen said no one had contacted her about the quarantine on Monday, but that she would comply with the order when she receives it. She said the family’s allegations about the incident are false and that the marks on the baby’s face were not there when the family left and must have been created by whatever treatment the child received at the hospital.
Bowen also alleged that the grandmother placed the baby on a sleeping wolf, but the wolf did not attack the girl. "If it attacked, there would be a puncture wound," Bowen said.
The incident occurred just days before Zoo’Opolis is scheduled to request a change of zoning for property in Brown County to move the facility west of the Bartholomew County line. The hearing is set for 6 p.m. today at the County Office Building in Nashville in Brown County.
Zoo’Opolis owner Bowen is scheduled to ask the Brown County Area Plan Commission tonight for a change of zoning for five acres at 718, 5722 and 5730 State Road 46 West where Bowen plans to relocate the facility. The facility, which opened in 2015, is currently inside Bowen’s home on County Road 50 South, about 1½ miles from the Brown-Bartholomew county line.
Zoo’Opolis houses more than 100 animals, but Bowen told the Brown County Democrat she could fit all of them in her van, they’re so small — “nothing dangerous to people,” she added, “no lions, tigers or bears.”
Most of them currently live indoors in temperature-controlled spaces. Those include house cat-sized Bengal cats, parrots, rabbits, chinchillas, skunks, ferrets, a raccoon, iguanas, turtles and tortoises, and other species.
At her current location, Bowen allows guests to enter “large, indoor play rooms” to “interact with a variety of friendly, loving animals,” she told the plan commission in a letter with her rezoning application.
One of her aims in creating the zoo was to teach people about species they might never encounter face to face, as well as to deter them from thinking it would be fun and easy to have wild animals as pets.
“It’s not that I just purchased animals and said, ‘OK, now you’re going to get along with people; they go to extensive training that starts really young so that that can happen,” she said. “… These animals are excited to explore with people and they aren’t being forced.”
There are several animals that guests can see inside, which have attached exterior habitats, including Muntjac and fallow deer, rabbit-like Patagonian maras, wallabies and kangaroos, a zebra, mini pigs, a fox and the wolf hybrid.
Bowen told the Brown County Democrat she had heard from some neighbors who had concerns about her application, including noise and danger to people. She said she’s only open until 5 p.m., so crowds won’t be at the zoo later; the animals don’t often make noise at night; and there aren’t large animals on her property that would be a danger to the public.
The idea of a timber wolf scares some people, she said, but “if you actually do your homework, you find out that if you’re an elk and it’s hungry, you’re in danger; but God made them instinctively afraid of man,” she said. “We educate people about them.”
Brown County’s zoning ordinance does not address zoos or petting zoos specifically, said Planning Director Chris Ritzmann, but it does allow for “other similar business uses” in general business.
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In January, Columbus officials notified Zoo’Opolis Exotic Petting World that the city would not grant a year-long waiver request to bring animals from the facility into the city.
The organization, located at 12696 W. County Road 50S, had requested to bring several animals permitted under city ordinance, and three that were not permitted without a temporary variance, to an event at Columbus Signature Academy, Fodrea campus, on Jan. 18.
The animals that would not be allowed without the temporary variance were a a peach striped skunk, a baby kinkajou and a wolf hybrid, said Mary Ferdon, Columbus executive director of administration and community development. A wolf hybrid is a term used to describe an animal that is part wolf and part domestic dog.
Forty-nine second-grade students at the elementary school were looking forward to seeing and petting animals from Zoo’Opolis, including a ferret, the kinkajou and skunk and the 10-month old wolf hybrid, which seemed to be the focus of most of the concern by city officials.
The ordinance says a written formal request for a variance for exotic animals must be presented to the city’s Animal Care Services with any recommendation going before the Columbus Board of Works for final approval.
Although the year-long waiver from Zoo’Opolis was not granted, the Columbus Board of Works allowed a variance with a provision that an animal care officer be present during the event at CSA Fodrea Elementary School, which the Animal Care Commission and Zoo’Opolis both consented to.
Ferdon said in the future, the city will require Zoo’Opolis to meet with the city’s Animal Care Commission and staff, who will go to the petting zoo to make sure that any exotic animals the organization plans to bring into the city are safe. The requests will then go through the Columbus Board of Works as a formality as long as the Animal Care staff members agree to what Zoo’Opolis is proposing, she said.
The petting zoo business, which has been in operation for three years, is already governed by agencies such as the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, according to Zoo’Opolis staff, and also possesses an exhibitor’s license.
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