By Sara Clifford
The Brown County Democrat
NASHVILLE — Brown County Area Plan Commission members are going to do more thinking before deciding whether or not to rezone land so that an exotic petting zoo can move there.
The commission heard more than a dozen comments from the audience Tuesday regarding plans for Zoo’Opolis to move from western Bartholomew County to Belmont in western Brown County.
After commission members made three different motions, which either died for a lack of a second or were voted down, they decided to table a decision until the May 28 meeting.
Business owner Kathleen Bowen is buying land on contract next to Hickory Shades Motel along State Road 46 West. It’s currently zoned residential; she needs general business zoning to be able to move her petting zoo of approximately 100 animals there.
Most of the animals are small enough to fit in a guest’s hand or arms, and they live indoors. A few, such as a zebra, miniature donkey and alpacas, would spend time outside.
Since 2015, Bowen has been running the petting zoo out of her rural Bartholomew County home.
One of the speakers was Brown Countian Annette Sebastian, who reported to Bartholomew County officials that her 9-month-old granddaughter was injured by a timber wolf hybrid at Zoo’Opolis on Easter weekend. She gave photos to the commission showing marks on the child’s face and the top of her head.
“Its mouth was on the baby,” she explained out in the hallway after the meeting.
Lucas Huff, who was visiting the facility with family, said in an emailed statement to The Democrat that the wolf hybrid was in the basement of the house and that guests were being allowed to freely interact with it.
“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,” he wrote.
Huff said the attack ended quickly with Sebastian grabbing the animal and removing its jaws from the baby’s head. Sebastian said that as she 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.
The animal was to be quarantined for 10 days, The Republic newspaper reported.
Huff said the baby is taking antibiotics as a precaution, as the skin on her head was broken, Huff said.
“This truly could have been a much different, much more tragic situation, and I fear for the safety of the children of Brown County is this business is allowed to operate unchecked,” he wrote.
Bowen disputed the family’s account of the incident. She was not in the room at Zoo’Opolis when it occurred.
“From my perspective, there was no bite,” she said during the zoning meeting. “The wolf is so powerful that if it had wanted to bite, there would be a puncture wound, a laceration or blood, and there was none of the three.”
For more on this story, see Friday’s Republic.
