Zoo to Stick With Animal Mover Despite Ethics Breach

The San Diego Zoo’s most trusted animal transporter has been stripped of his 1990 membership in the American Assn. of Zoological Parks and Aquariums because of an ethics violation, officials confirmed Wednesday, but San Diego officials said they will continue to employ him.

Earl Tatum, an Arkansas-based breeder, hauler and dealer that San Diego Zoo officials have called the most reliable in the country, was suspended by the professional organization for the rest of 1990, according to Karen Asis, an AAZPA spokesman. The grounds for the four-month suspension are being kept confidential, she said, adding that, if Tatum chooses to pay his 1991 dues next year, his membership will be reinstated.

Other zoos, including the Los Angeles Zoo, suspended all business with Tatum in February, after a “60 Minutes” broadcast alleged that Tatum used middlemen to sell exotic animals at wildlife auctions. The AAZPA specifically prohibits its members from participating in such sales, where animals are sometimes sold to be killed for sport.

But Jeff Jouett, a spokesman for the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park, said Wednesday that the AAZPA has assured him that the grounds for Tatum’s suspension did not relate to the “60 Minutes” allegations.

“We have no indication that it was serious enough to suspend working with him,” Jouett said. “To us, he is still a capable, experienced animal transporter, possibly the best in the country. He delivers animals from this zoo to other zoos alive and well, and that’s what’s important.”

In the September issue of the AAZPA newsletter, Executive Director Robert Wagner also distanced Tatum’s punishment from the televised report.

“Neither the Ethics Board nor the AAZPA Board of Directors could find any evidence of ethics violations based upon the allegations aired,” he wrote. “However, during the investigation of those allegations, the Ethics Board found other areas of concern regarding Mr. Tatum’s activities.”

The same newsletter includes a clarification of the AAZPA’s code of professional ethics that reminds members that “the possession of a USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) license, unto itself, in no way ensures that an individual/organization is fully qualified to receive wildlife. Members must make every reasonable effort to check the abilities of the (recipient) to care for the animal.”

Tatum has permits from both the Departments of Interior and Agriculture to transport, sell and house endangered and other animals.

Like the nation’s other major zoos, the San Diego Zoological Society relies on animal transporters such as Tatum to move stock between institutions and to act as brokers of “surplus” animals--some of them rare and endangered--that are pulled from the zoo population to prevent inbreeding.

The society, which moves more zoo animals than anyone else in the world, requires buyers of its animals to sign agreements vowing to provide “humane care” and to make their customers sign the same agreement. The zoo does not require, however, that such third-party agreements be reported to San Diego authorities.

As a result, the San Diego Zoo has no records of where its surplus animals go. But, in the past, zoo officials have expressed confidence that the surplus animals they place with Tatum end up in good hands.

In a February interview, James M. Dolan Jr., director of collections for the zoological society, called Tatum “an excellent animal handler and mover. He’s the most reliable one in the country.”

After doing business with Tatum for two decades--often paying him in animals instead of cash--the San Diego Zoo would be in a serious bind if Tatum’s services were no longer available, Dolan said then.

“What happens if he dies?” asked Dolan, who said he has known Tatum since the late 1960s and socializes with him at trade gatherings. “You can’t just put them anywhere,” he said of the animals. “You can’t just rent a U-Haul.”

But critics say that animal traders such as Tatum provide a loophole through which surplus animals can slip--sometimes ending ending up at wildlife auctions, uncertified private collections and private hunting parks.

Although the specific charges that led to his recent suspension from the AAZPA have not been made public, Tatum’s past troubles are a matter of record. In 1982, for example, he paid a $1,000 fine for not possessing the proper permit for his sale of two pygmy hippopotamuses and one white rhinoceros to a buyer in Mexico.

Last September, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials sent Tatum a warning letter stating that his required annual animal transport reports during 1986, 1987 and 1988 had been both “incomplete and inaccurate,” and that in 1986 he sold a Grevy’s zebra, a threatened species, to a Texan who was not authorized to receive the animal.

The letter put Tatum on notice that his actions could jeopardize renewal of his two-year federal permit, known formally as a captive-bred wildlife registration, and that any “future infringements” could result in revocation.

This January, Tatum was fined $7,000 for the unlawful 1986 sale of an endangered snow leopard to a Texas man who did not have the federal permit needed to receive the animal.

In filings with the federal government, Tatum has consistently denied the charges, contending the the snow leopard was a gift and that the transaction was therefore legal. But the government found that Tatum “attempted to disguise the transaction as a donation in order to circumvent federal law.” A federal investigation of Tatum is continuing, officials said Wednesday.