Witness Spells Out L.A. Zoo Violations : Animals: USDA veterinarian tells city panel inspectors found an ‘unheard of’ number of breaches of federal regulations.

When U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors entered a feed storage shed at the Los Angeles Zoo last July, they were startled by some unexpected occupants, rodents that jumped from open animal feed bags and scurried away.

The inspectors uncovered an “unheard of” number of federal violations of the Animal Welfare Act, USDA veterinarian Kathleen Garland told a City Council committee hearing on Thursday.

“The zoo had a very good possibility of having its license canceled,” she said, adding that the health of the animals was “definitely” in danger.

But there was vast improvement between the USDA’s July and August inspections, she said, and that prompted the department to halt legal proceedings it was preparing to bring against the zoo.

Garland testified as the first witness at a hearing called by City Councilman Joel Wachs to examine allegations of chronic violations at the Griffith Park facility. The two other committee members--Gilbert Lindsay, who is hospitalized after suffering a stroke, and Gloria Molina--did not attend the meeting.

Wachs, chairman of the council’s Arts, Health and Humanities Committee, questioned Garland for more than an hour, then said: “I think you’ve laid out a pretty devastating picture.”

The Times reported two weeks ago that the zoo had been cited repeatedly by USDA inspectors for more than three years for inadequate food storage, sanitation and drainage problems, pest and rodent contamination, inadequate housing, run-down animal barns and other alleged violations of federal regulations.

Nearly a year ago, the USDA sent a certified letter to zoo Director Warren Thomas demanding an immediate response to a lengthy list of violations, but did not get a response, Garland told the committee.

“We feel like we were dealing with a facility that was totally disregarding USDA regulations,” she said.

Thomas declined an invitation to speak at the hearing, a Wachs aide said. A zoo spokeswoman said Thomas was “unavailable to answer questions” from a reporter. Earlier, Thomas said the zoo recently has corrected most of the violations.

However, a top official of the Department of Recreation and Parks, which operates the city-owned zoo, told the committee that USDA reports and correspondence would now bypass Thomas and go directly to James Hadaway, general manager of the department.

Sheldon Jensen, the assistant general manager and Thomas’ boss, told Wachs that zoo managers had never informed him or other department officials of the problems cited by the USDA.

To assure that Recreation and Parks officials learn promptly about any future problems at the zoo, Jensen said, the facility’s USDA license will be changed to designate the City of Los Angeles as the operator rather than the Los Angeles Zoo.

Violation notices and other USDA correspondence should have been sent to him in the past by zoo officials “as a matter of common sense or common courtesy,” Jensen said, adding that the department does not dispute any of the USDA’s findings.

Relations between Recreation and Parks officials and Thomas have been tense for several years. Thomas was fired by the department in 1986, but was reinstated in 1987 by a federal judge, who ruled that his rights had been violated.

In firing Thomas, city officials had cited a number of problems with purchases and sales of animals, Thomas’ alleged use of ethnic and racial epithets against employees and charges that Thomas took zoo supplies for his personal use.

In her testimony Thursday, Garland described a list of violations so long that inspectors wrote down only a handful of examples. The zoo lacked quality control procedures, she said, and its employees appeared to be poorly trained.

She described a food preparation area that had “layers of mildew on the walls and evidence of rodent droppings.”

Regarding a room used for thawing frozen meat and fish, she said, “there were bins of standing blood with garbage sitting in it . . . along with meat to be served the next day.”

On an afternoon in July when the temperature was 90 degrees, she said, a load of fish that had already thawed was left standing in the sun for three or four hours.

Some fish contain enzymes that build up under such conditions and create nutritional deficiencies when consumed by the zoo animals, she added.

While she noted no sick animals in July, she said that “in the long run, it will definitely affect the health and well-being of the animals. . . . Sooner or later, it’s going to catch up with you.”

Wachs said he was “shocked” by the magnitude of the problem and would hold another hearing soon.