Trumbull SeaQuest fish deaths caused by faulty tank, report shows

The SeaQuest interactive aquarium in Trumbull.

TRUMBULL — A malfunctioning filtration system led to an ozone poisoning-related die-off in the stingray tank at the SeaQuest aquarium located inside the Trumbull Mall, according to a state report on the incident.

According to the March 9 report from the state Department of Agriculture, DOA officials received a complaint from the PETA Foundation claiming an anonymous former employee reported a "mass tank failure" and "mass die off" in the main stingray tank.

State Animal Control officers Kelli Baker and Nancy Jarvis visited the facility March 1, and in a meeting with SeaQuest marine manager Sarah Cook and another employee, officials learned there had been an incident with the tank on Feb. 14, the report shows.

"Cook, the marine manager, stated that she was contacted by an employee on her day off," Jarvis wrote in the report. "Within 10 (minutes) of notification, she arrived at SeaQuest. She realized that there was a mechanical failure with the apex filtration system, and it shut off."

A test of water quality showed that the ozone system was high, Cook said.

"As a result of the mechanical failure, 18 smaller fish died," according to the report. "No sharks or stingrays were lost."

Cook has continued to monitor the tank and had ordered a failsafe to connect to the system and prevent further incidents in the future, Jarvis wrote in the report.

The two officials determined the fish in the tank at the time of the inspection appeared to be in adequate condition, the report showed.

Officials at Boise-based SeaQuest declined to comment.

Although the Connecticut Animal Control Division investigates and enforces animal cruelty laws, the department doesn't have the authority to regulate the business and has limited experience with exotic sea creatures, according to the report. The federal Department of Agriculture handles exhibitor registration for some exotic animals.

A spokesperson for the department didn't respond to a request for comment about the incident.

Since the Trumbull SeaQuest location opened in 2019, state inspectors have noted several incidents at the location.

In 2020, an otter bit a small child during a feeding demonstration, according to a state report issued a few months later. The report concluded that a piece of PVC pipe intended to prevent the animals from reaching visitors as they passed food through a plexiglass wall separating people from the otters had been missing.

The same report also noted that a few weeks earlier an employee had hit an otter with a metal food bowl. That employee was later terminated, company officials said.

In 2021, another state inspection reported a kinkajou, a small rainforest mammal also known as a honey bear, had scratched a child's face.

SeaQuest the following year agreed to remove kinkajous and porcupines from the facility in an agreement with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The deal allowed the business to continue offering interactions with many of its exotic animals, including otters, wallabies, sloths, and Bengal cats. But SeaQuest agreed to move porcupines and kinkajous in its care out of state.

Michelle Sinnott, the PETA Foundation's director of captive animal enforcement, said she filed the complaint with state officials after hearing from a former SeaQuest employee who was at the facility when the fish were discovered dead. She said many marine creatures and reptiles fall into a gray area for regulators.

"The Connecticut Department of Agriculture oversees general animal cruelty issues, but sometimes chronic neglect in some of the ways which these animals are housed and exhibited don't always rise to the level of cruelty to animals," Sinnott said.

"You have a lot of issues at SeaQuest that just fall through the cracks because there's not one single agency that oversees how all of those animals are being treated," she said.

Even so, the PETA Foundation wants SeaQuest to no longer contain animals at its facilities.

"If SeaQuest shifts its business model, where it's not trapping animals inside shopping malls and forcing them to be poked and prodded by the public all day, and they can shift to animal-free entertainment, then they should," Sinnott said.

[email protected]

Twitter:@AndyTsubasaF