PETA Hopes FTC Will Make a Splash by Investigating SeaQuest's Business Model

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has taken a step forward in its journey to force SeaQuest, a chain of ten interactive aquariums that includes a location in Littleton, to stop allowing direct contact between people and wild animals, filing a complaint against the company with the Federal Trade Commission.

PETA had sent a letter to the United States Department of Agriculture on January 12 requesting that it terminate SeaQuest’s Animal Welfare Act license. It also had filed a similar request in September 2019 — partly because of alleged infractions in Littleton, but also because of issues at other locations. Now the animal-rights nonprofit hopes that the FTC will use the information in its new December 5 complaint to intervene because of what it describes as SeaQuest’s "deceptive practices" of failing to inform customers of the risks of interacting with its animals.

“SeaQuest’s interactive animal exhibits are a minefield of hazards that have sent children to the hospital, left other visitors with bloody wounds and injuries that required urgent care, and put animals at risk of euthanasia,” says Michelle Sinnott, director of captive animal law enforcement for PETA. “That's why PETA is asking the FTC to fully investigate the extent of consumer injuries happening at SeaQuest facilities across the country and then prevent this carnival show of a business from allowing direct contact with wild animals.”

PETA used records of injuries and other incidents that occurred in 2019 at SeaQuest Littleton to illustrate its point: SeaQuest doesn’t properly inform people about the risks of wild animal interactions like those in its facilities, where people can touch and feed aquatic animals, mammals and birds, leading to injuries to consumers that violate the Federal Trade Commission Act, which gives the commission its authority.

Vince Covino owns the entire SeaQuest chain, which has a record of poor animal treatment and family connections to illegal activity involving animals. Vince’s brother Ammon Covino was convicted of trafficking wildlife at his Idaho Aquarium in Boise before he helped Vince open SeaQuest locations in Las Vegas and Layton, Utah. In 2013, 200 animals died in three months at the now-closed Portland Aquarium that was owned by the Covino brothers, according to The Oregonian, which obtained a "death log" detailing how the animals succumbed to starvation, infection, attack by animals unsuitable to cohabitation, complications from a power outage and other unidentified causes.

In Littleton, the facility lost its license from Colorado Parks and Wildlife in 2019 after it reported over fifty injuries to staff and guests. The CPW license regulated only some of the species at SeaQuest — and those were removed and replaced, allowing the operation to continue without licensing simply by not having any regulated species on site. SeaQuest Littleton reapplied for a new zoological license through CPW in September 2021. CPW did not respond to requests for an update on the SeaQuest licensing process.

Since then, the Pet Animal Care Facilities Act program — created by the Colorado Legislature in 1994 and administered by the Colorado Department of Agriculture — created a commercial pet animal facility license that allows it to regulate all the species at SeaQuest Littleton that are not considered wildlife.  PACFA conducts inspections at SeaQuest Littleton when it receives complaints.

However, PACFA oversees only those animals not considered wildlife, such as iguanas, fish and birds, which PETA says has resulted in less documentation of injuries and incidents at the facility than there was in 2019, when the facility held a license with CPW. But that hasn't stopped people from getting hurt, according to Sinnott.

“Based on records that we've documented, dozens of consumers, including children, have been bitten, scratched or otherwise injured by animals at SeaQuest,” she says. “Those types of injuries will almost certainly continue to occur, and SeaQuest markets itself as a family-friendly, hands-on environment that encourages children to interact and touch almost all of the animals with little to no supervision.”

Sinnott says parents could bring their children to SeaQuest for a seemingly fun, safe experience and leave having been bitten or scratched. The FTC complaint regarding SeaQuest Littleton describes incidences in which poisonous pufferfish have bitten multiple guests,  Other species, including iguanas, horn sharks, Asian water monitors and pigs, also have bitten customers in Littleton. That information is not readily available to the public or included on SeaQuest's website, Sinnott contends.

One of PETA's asks of the FTC is to "require SeaQuest to disclose on its website and next to each exhibit the risks — including zoological disease transmission — that customers may be potentially exposed to by interacting with wild animals."

Regulation at each SeaQuest location differs depending on state policy, and not every state has the same reporting requirements for incidents. There is no federal authority over many animals in SeaQuest’s care, because the USDA is in charge only of mammals, which means the fish and amphibians at SeaQuest aren’t under its purview.

Sinnott says the only consistent reporting is of injuries caused by animals that are rabies vector species; those injuries are usually reported to local health authorities by medical professionals. Much of the information about incidents in PETA’s FTC complaint comes from SeaQuest Littleton’s 2019 records with CPW because it represents one of the few times a SeaQuest location has been subject to that level of reporting.

However, Westword obtained records of complaints and inspections at SeaQuest Littleton through a Colorado Open Records Act request to PACFA. From February to December of 2022, PACFA received complaints about the facility's treatment of wallabies, chickens and Savannah cats, as well as a lack of cleanliness at the facility for reptile and aquarium enclosures.

The Savannah cat complaint stemmed from a cat biting a small child while the employee supervising the cat enclosure was distracted with another patron. The inspection report notes that SeaQuest Littleton’s general manager, David Slater, told the PACFA inspector that the cats had a hard time adjusting back to being around people after the pandemic. There were no violations observed at the time of the inspection triggered by the cat-bite incident.

Records show the facility was responsive to complaints and made necessary adjustments when needed, such as fixing a fence with sharp points inside the wallaby enclosure that could potentially harm the wallabies. SeaQuest did not respond to requests for comment.

All of the Savannah cats had to be quarantined away from humans because they are classified as a rabies vector species, and the employees were unsure which of three cats had bitten the child. Sinnott notes that quarantine is better than the alternative: euthanasia. The only way to test for rabies is when animals are dead, because the virus is inside the animal's brain. SeaQuest has a history of allowing animals from rabies vector species to come into contact with humans, she adds.

“That's a very serious consequence for the individuals who get bitten, but also a serious consequence for the animals with the way that the SeaQuest business model operates,” Sinnott says.

More often than not, the company has been able to convince local authorities that a quarantine period is more appropriate, and the animals are not killed. Flash, a sloth who used to reside at SeaQuest Littleton, was one such animal. In September 2019, the facility’s bird, reptile and mammal manager faced animal-abuse charges for failing to seek treatment for Flash, who was burned twice in one month by a heat lamp in his enclosure. Flash also had a history of biting people. When SeaQuest Littleton lost its CPW license, it could no longer keep the sloth, and so Flash was transferred to Minnesota — where he bit someone again and was nearly euthanized.

“That's an example of where an animal had a bite history,” Sinnott says. “He was transferred. They still allowed him to interact with people. He bit someone else and almost suffered dire consequences.”