More than 50 sloths are dead. Florida authorities are still investigating how dozens of them died at Sloth World in Orlando, animals housed in an off-site warehouse without permanent electricity or running water, before the attraction ever opened a single day to the public. While that investigation continues and Sloth World sits in bankruptcy, a new exotic animal encounter is preparing to open in Margate, where customers would pay to interact with sloths, kangaroos, reptiles, and birds.

Florida has not fixed the oversight failures that allowed this crisis to happen. And that means nothing is stopping it from happening again.

The exhibitor behind the Margate proposal, Larry Wallach, has his own documented history of problems. Federal inspection records from his previous sloth encounter operation in New York show issues with animal handling, facility conditions, and public safety, problems serious enough that authorities took action. More recently, a Facebook video posted by a Margate city commissioner captured Wallach parading a sloth through a crowd at an elementary school graduation, while his federal exhibitor license had already expired. No serious consequence followed. He then appeared before the Margate City Commission to pitch his new business, carrying a live sloth as a prop.

Scientists who study sloths have been clear: these animals are "extremely ill-suited to captivity." The USDA has documented that repeated public handling places immense stress on exotic animals. Florida is not a state that lacks information about what these encounters do to animals. It is a state that has chosen not to act on that information.

The pattern here is the problem. When an exhibitor with documented federal violations can let a license lapse, display animals anyway, and then apply to open a new business in a state still processing a mass animal death crisis at a similar attraction, the regulatory system has failed completely. Florida's current framework does not require exhibitors to hold an active federal license as a condition of state permitting. It does not mandate welfare inspections before operations begin. It does not close the door on operators with histories of noncompliance.

We are calling on Florida to deny the Margate Wildlife Adventures permit until the state has strengthened its exotic animal exhibitor requirements. We are calling on the Florida Legislature to pass meaningful protections, including mandatory active federal licensing, pre-opening welfare inspections, and automatic denial for applicants with documented violations. We are calling on the USDA to reform its own licensing process so that exhibitors with repeated safety and handling violations cannot simply relocate to a new state and start over.

More than 50 sloths died in Florida because the rules were not strong enough. Sign this petition to demand Florida make sure it never happens again.