Should you hug a sloth?

According to animal rights activists, SeaQuest’s are not. The for-profit company is not accredited by any zoo organization. It has sometimes clashed with the USDA, which regulates only some of the wildlife on display. Last summer, the four-year-old SeaQuest was in Trumbull, Connecticut, closed after several USDA citationsincluding one in which a child was bitten by a sugar glider. (The facility was cited for inadequate supervision.) Another in Colorado closed this year after numerous citations at the state and federal level.

The company is faced with almost constant protests from former employees and groups like PETA, who filed complaints about what they called The Cruelty, Neglect and Exploitation of SeaQuestNearly 100 animals, including two sloths, died at the Woodbridge site between 2019, when it opened, and 2023, according to state data obtained by The New York Times.

Late last month, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Fish and Wildlife Division sent the company a 32-page notice of violations, listing dozens of animals that were sick, injured or abused, including territorial reptiles that fought so aggressively that they drew blood, which flowed around their enclosure. An otter and a porcupine escaped, captured on security cameras but unnoticed by staff. A distressed scarlet macaw plucked out its feathers. Authorities told SeaQuest it must immediately change its practices and pay a small fine by July 10 or risk significant fines and the revocation of its licenses and animals.

Asked for comment after the violations were reported, a SeaQuest spokeswoman referred The Times to the FAQ section of the company websiteIn response to an earlier ABC News investigation, the company posted the following: “Between 2021 and 2022, SeaQuest Woodbridge acquired hundreds of rescued animals, many of whom were in very poor health.” Executives did not respond to questions about specific incidents.

Two sloths have also died at the Las Vegas SeaQuest. Like all the others, it is located in an indoor shopping mall, where natural light, humidity, vegetation and diggable floors — the environmental environment in which many animals thrive — are scarce.