Zoo owner charged with animal cruelty
Mooresville, NC (US)

Incident Date: Thursday, Dec 29, 2011
County: Iredell

Charges: Misdemeanor
Disposition: Alleged

Alleged: Henry Hampton

The owner of a popular zoo in Mooresville is facing a charge of animal cruelty.

Federal investigators said Henry Hampton, the director of Lazy 5 Ranch, willfully neglected one of the giraffes on his property for more than a year.

Eyewitness News reviewed the U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection records for the past two years at the Lazy 5 Ranch.

Documents show federal inspectors visited the zoo 14 times in 2011. In nearly every visit, the inspection report documented that a young giraffe had painfully overgrown hooves on all four feet.

Hampton's close friend and neighbor Danny Evans said the accusation isn't true.

"I'm a little skeptical. I think it's a brouhaha, a much ado about nothing," Evans said.

The USDA said the giraffe's overgrown hooves caused an abnormal stride and strained the animal's tendons.

Inspectors have mentioned this problem in nearly every report Eyewitness News obtained dating back to June 2010.

Inspectors said that Hampton tried to fix the problem by having the giraffe walk on rough gravel, but the condition didn't improve. "Just knowing Henry and the way the zoo is taken care of, I think it's just one of those happenstance things. It doesn't occur as a habit," Evans said.

The USDA reported other problems with the zoo this year, including a baboon with a right eyelid problem, deer with hernias and open wounds and sheep panting and lying on their sides from being unsheared.

Evans said he's been to the zoo dozens of times over the past 20 years, and said Hampton is committed to keeping his animals safe and healthy.

"He's got over 350 species of animals on this farm and it's hard to keep up with each and every one of them," he said. "He hurts when one of them is hurting. He has that kind of care and compassion for the animals."

Eyewitness News stopped by Hampton's home Friday, but no one came to the door.

Hampton will be in court to face the animal cruelty charge at the end of January in Rowan County.

References

« NC State Animal Cruelty Map
« More cases in Iredell County, NC

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