Indiana wildlife refuge still targeted by feds
The back-and-forth fight over Tim Stark's U.S. Department of Agriculture-issued license – which allows him to own and exhibit animals at Charlestown's Wildlife in Need nonprofit refuge – has entered a new legal phase.
The USDA is appealing a decision by a federal administrative law judge that allowed Stark to keep his Animal Welfare Act license, asking the decision to be reversed or for the judge to issue a new decision. Stark and Jeffersonville attorney David Mosley filed a response to that appeal Feb. 29.
The USDA's original argument, filed more than a year ago, claimed Stark's license should be revoked because he pled guilty to one violation of the Endangered Species Act in 2008.
But Stark's counsel argued – and Administrative Law Judge Janice Bullard agreed – that the USDA renewed Stark's exhibitor's license several times after he violated the act.
"In fact, (the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) has renewed (Stark's) AWA license following his conviction, most recently in November 2014," Bullard wrote in the judgment.
The USDA says in its appeal that it was essentially forced to renew the license because it's an administrative procedure. As long as Stark signed the renewal form (which says to the best of his knowledge he is compliant with animal welfare standards), paid his fee and detailed the animals owned, the license would be renewed, it says.
"So long as an exhibitor meets these three criteria, even if her facility fails to comply with animal wildlife standards on the license expiration date, USDA must grant her a renewal," the appeal states.
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Bullard also argued that Stark's one violation of the Endangered Species Act did not include any proof that he harmed animals, only that he illegally transported them. The USDA's appeal says that by illegally transporting animals he was by definition harming the ocelots involved.
The USDA also contends that there's no reason the judge should have considered the violation an "old conviction." It cites U.S. code, saying the statute of limitations only applies to cases in which a penalty is imposed – and the USDA says revoking a license is remedial and administrative, not a penalty.
In his response, Mosley writes that according to administrative law, even if Stark had been found to have harmed the ocelots in 2008, the license should have been revoked within one year of the decision. He also argues that the cases used by the USDA to set precedent for an appeal aren't applicable.
And Stark didn't hold the exhibitor's license in 2004 when he illegally transferred the ocelots, Mosley argues. According to Bullard's judgment, Stark did not receive the license until 2007, then was convicted in 2008.
"The (USDA) offers no authority or rationale or logic to support its complaint that a license that did not exist should now be terminated because of something that occurred before it was issued," the response states.
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The long-awaited judgment came a week after more than 40 animals died in a barn fire at Wildlife in Need. The USDA said it did not investigate that fire because there were no USDA-regulated animals killed or injured.
According to the USDA's last count, there are more than 120 exotic, federally regulated species on the Wildlife in Need property.
The USDA usually only performs annual inspections of licensed facilities, unless the organization has a history of repeat noncompliances. Wildlife in Need faced at least three USDA inspections in 2015, adding up to 12 total and four repeat noncompliances.
The nonprofit has repeatedly come under fire from animal rights groups and others for its "tiger baby playtime" fundraisers, where people pay to interact with tiger cubs. According to Wildlife in Need's Facebook page, the fundraisers have been delayed until repairs from the fire are complete.
Reporter Lexy Gross can be reached at (502) 582-4087, or via email at lgross@courier-journal.com.