FILE PHOTO - The Little Farmers Petting Zoo's donation box.
Image Credit: FACEBOOK / Little Farmers Petting Zoo
December 29, 2020 - 10:58 AM
The kids caught vandalizing a Kamloops petting zoo's honour box will be making up for it by volunteering their time.
Al Threatful, owner of Little Farmers Petting Zoo and Exotic Birds across from Westsyde Centennial Park, posted a video on Facebook which showed three individuals on the night of Dec. 27, trashing an honour box, which provides self-serve food to the animals and operates by donation.
“The kids were identified and they’re going to do some volunteer work to make up for it,” Threatful said.
READ MORE: Kamloops community steps up to help much-loved petting zoo targeted by vandals
It didn’t take very long for the individuals to be identified after he shared the security footage of the incident on Facebook, he said.
The security system has been up and running for the last month and was installed since the petting zoo had problems with vandalism in the past.
Back in July, when another vandalism incident was reported, Westsyde residents rallied to purchase a security system for the petting zoo, which has been a neighbourhood staple for roughly 30 years.
“That box had been done before and people were annoyed about it,” he said, adding that a GoFundMe page was started to raise money for the new security system. “We’ve had other things happen over the years, there have been isolated incidents and some have been worse than that.”
“You post it (on social media) and hopefully the consequences follow,” he said.
The zoo is the last piece of what was once a 20-acre farm and Threatful hopes it can be preserved for future generations.
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