This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Two Utah teens — the latest in a long line of protesters against Lagoon's "Wild Kingdom" zoo — have thrust the Farmington amusement park onto the world stage.
And not in a good way.
Kenna Barkdull, 16, and her 13-year-old sister, Grace, filed a petition with the online site, Care2, and have amassed 158,000 signatures from around the globe calling on Farmington and Lagoon officials to shut down the zoo.
"When you go on Lagoon Amusement Park's Wild Kingdom train ride in Farmington, Utah, you see all sorts of amazing animals including Siberian tigers, lions and zebras. They're amazing to see but, for the animals, it's a very different story," the petition reads. "The animals that live in the zoo, that are on public display at Lagoon, have a very sad life. Ranging from tigers to wildebeest, lions, jaguars, zebras, miniature donkeys … [they are] kept in small dirt, concrete and wire cages with very limited space and no enrichment whatsoever."
The Riverton teens wrote the petition with the help of their father, Matt, explained the girls' mother.
"Grace has an obsession with animals," Kristin Barkdull said. "The last time we went to Lagoon she heard about a planned protest that Saturday and she wanted to participate. She's only 13 and we said no. Then she got the idea for the [online petition]."
"It's our job as humans to speak up for other beings who do not have voices," Kenna told Care2 when the sisters applied to put their petition on the website. "If you wouldn't want to live your entire life in a concrete box, why on earth would they?"
Said Grace: "It's important for people to understand that the lives of these animals are not ours to control and make miserable. They have feelings, too. They were not put on this Earth so we could stuff them in a cage and turn them into just another attraction."
The petition asserts that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has inspected Lagoon "many times" and accused the park of violations, including lack of veterinary care for sick and dying animals, filthy enclosures, untrained keepers and failure to provide the animals with enough space to roam.
Lagoon spokesman Adam Leishman said the allegations about the park's zoo are false.
"The animals are treated extremely well," he said, adding that the USDA conducts surprise inspections and have given the zoo high marks. He noted that Lagoon has three veterinarians on site and that many of the animals are brought in after they have been injured or been in other sanctuaries that no longer could care for them.
"We took in an eagle that had been hit by a truck and lost a wing," he said. "We also took in a camel that had been at Hogle Zoo but couldn't get along with the other camels."
The teens' petition calls on Farmington Mayor Jim Talbot, the City Council and Lagoon bosses to send the animals to "a better zoo or an animal sanctuary."
Lagoon's zoo has been the target of several protests since it opened in 1967. Last year two demonstrators were cited with misdemeanors for violating a city ordinance requiring a $50 fee to obtain a permit to protest. After the American Civil Liberties Union intervened on First Amendment grounds, the charges were dismissed and the city has dropped its fee requirement.