New Jersey Petting Zoo Owner Says Teens Trespassed and Abused Animals
Written by SOURCE on August 24, 2020
The owners running a popular farm/petting zoo in New Jersey are reportedly very pissed off after a bunch of allegedly wayward teens got onto their grounds after hours and abused the animals. Said allegedly wayward teens then managed to get away.
The farm in question (Abma’s Farm) has been run by four generations of the same family. As such, it’s been operated by the same household for over 80 years.
“I’m a fourth generation farmer here at Abma’s Farm,” said Jimmy Abma to CBS New York. “It’s just frustrating because even though this is a petting zoo and we open to the public, this is still our home. We still have three generations of our four-generation farm living here on this property.”
Abma was alerted to the goings-on after coming across a Snapchat post around 10:30 p.m. this past Saturday. That post is said to have shown a young girl on the back of a miniature donkey who was not supposed to be handling that type of weight (just scroll below). Abma’s farm name was tagged on the post, and also he recognized the miniature donkey in question.
“Obviously, we’re closed, so that raised a concern to me right off the bat, that there’s people trespassing, the animals are somewhat in danger and I just need to figure out what’s going on,” he told CBS.
He went outside yelling which alerted the group of at least six teens. They subsequently took off and got away. Abma says he found the zoo’s gates open, that the animals were frightened, and that a miniature pony (not clear if it’s the same one) had lipstick on its face. TMZ adds that this group of half-a-dozen or more were in multiple animal pens. They also say that the group “interacted with livestock in ways that were dangerous.” It’s not quite clear what that means.
“Couple of the animals you couldn’t even get close to. They were all skittish. They were all jumping around. We did a full count on the animals and we’re still trying to account for all of them so it’s just a frustrating thing,” Abma said. “These animals, they have the ability to kick and rear up and they have the ability to bite you.”
Two people also reportedly tried to snag stuff from his market. While that might not be as salacious as putting makeup on a donkey, that also irritated Jimmy for obvious reasons.
“Whatever these kids did they need to be held responsible for it,” he added. “At the end of the day, this is our house, this is our yard, this is our livelihood.”
Though it won’t impact you if you weren’t going to visit on Monday anyway, the zoo is closed so a vet can do a health/wellness check on the animals.
CBS adds that police know what suspects they’re looking for, which may be on account of the fact that this wasn’t the smartest crime:
It’s not clear if arrests have occurred.
