“Wash your hands”, though simple, could help keep E. coli from ruining your family’s next visit to the petting zoo, the Courier-Journal reports.
“It’s by far the best way to make sure that you’re going to be safe,” said Dr. Matt Zahn, the Louisville Metro Health Department’s medical director for communicable diseases. “Eat before or
Both the Louisville Zoo, which has a year-round petting zoo, and Huber’s Orchard & Winery in Starlight, Indiana, are determined not to let E. coli spoil their patrons’ fun.
Huber’s petting zoo, which will open for the season on Sunday, has existed for 17 years without incident, spokeswoman Jan Huber told the Courier-Journal:
“We feel
Today Darla Carter of the Courier-Journal said petting zoos are loosely regulated. Under the Animal Welfare Act, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has some say-so over petting zoo and animal exhibits.
“If you’re exhibiting an animal, you’re going to have to be licensed with us,” said Jim Rogers, a spokesman for the USDA’s Animal
Bill E. Wambeke, a writer for American News, reports that Brown County Fair Manager Larry Gerlach told Idaho commissioners Tuesday that after attending a seminar in Wisconsin earlier in the month on how animals can spread E. coli to small children, the fair board considered closing the petting zoo at their Fair.
Gerlach said
The Department of Agriculture is decontaminating fairgrounds around Central Florida after more than 75 people who attended three fairs got sick with a potentially fatal kidney illness.
The company that ran the petting zoos, Ag-Venture Farm Shows of Plant City, has been under quarantine since the outbreak. Several Central Florida families have already filed lawsuits.
State agriculture investigators spent the day disinfecting the Central Florida Fairgrounds, making sure there were no traces of E. coli bacteria at the petting zoo that may have made more than two dozen kids sick recently.
“The fair people have gone through and removed all the manure and straw and bedding and then they power-washed
The recent E. coli outbreaks in Florida set off alarms among county fair organizers, zoo operators and extension service agents nationwide.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that in Utah, children are most likely to come in contact with barnyard animals at working farms such as Thanksgiving Point’s Farm Country, Salt Lake County’s Wheeler Farm and
Food safety experts say the war against food pathogens is far from over. Microbes evolve, and produce now comes from all around the world, including countries that have ineffective sanitation.
“We like to think that we’re winning the battle to maintain control, but we have to realize that we live in a biological ecosystem where
There’s nothing more American than a State or County Fair. From Washington and North Carolina to New York and Florida, countless numbers of children visit their local Fairs to ride the rides, feast on cotton candy and hot dogs, and visit those cute farm animals at the petting zoos. Unfortunately, some of the children will get very sick from doing a very simple act — petting those animals. And the sickest ones, most of them very small children, may be close to death before their doctors identify the cause – a relatively new strain of deadly bacteria known as E. coli O157:H7.
So what do we do? Banish the county fair? Close down petting zoos? Fair organizers and petting zoo owners need to take some rather simple and inexpensive precautions. North Carolina Department of Agriculture has just taken a bold, yet small, step to try a prevent a repeat of last years nearly 100 people, again mostly children, who were stricken with E. coli O157:H7 after visiting a petting zoo at the North Carolina State Fair. Separation of possibly infected animals and children is a positive step. Adding multiple hand washing stations and warning the public of the risk of disease spread by animals all makes sense, but they are only guidelines.
However, Pennsylvania is still the lone state that has put into law measures to protect visitors at fairs and petting zoos from E. coli O157:H7 and other zoonotic diseases. The law passed by Pennsylvania legislators stipulates that animal exhibitions provide hand washing facilities, and post notices on the need for hand washing as well as warning about the dangers of more than 75 zoonotic diseases. It is the law and applicable to all. But, do North Carolina’s guidelines and Pennsylvania law go far enough?Continue Reading Praise for North Carolina Petting Zoo Guidelines
New guidelines set by the Department of Agriculture will now require visitors to reach through fences to pet the animals at petting zoos and animal exhibits, and carefully wash their hands afterward, in response to recent E. coli-related outbreaks.
Under the guidelines, the petting zoos at this year’s fair will feature signs warning that