Kliebert’s Turtle and Alligator Farm is facing child abuse complaints from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. 

Located in Hammond, the farm was reported to the Department of Child and Family Services after teaching a six-year-old boy to handle alligators. According to the complaint, the boy was permitted to “wrangle dangerous alligators and crocodiles, placing him at risk of virulent infection and serious injury from bites, scratches, head butts and thrashing.” 

Mary Kliebert, a family member who is not the boy’s mother, responded to the complaints in an interview with the Associated Press. 

“It’s been in the family for seven decades,” said Kliebert. “The whole Kliebert family has been through this.” 

She went on to say children are only permitted to handle baby alligators or larger ones with their mouths taped shut. 

DCFS declined to comment due to confidentiality restrictions; however, social work professor Corie Hebert explained the process by which child abuse is investigated. After the initial call, the DCFS workers will make an assessment regarding the level of risk to the child. If the information indicates there could be a substantial level of risk, an investigator will be sent to the home to determine if the child is safe. 

“Basically, a safe child is one who lives in a home where there are no threats of danger within the family or when the parents possess sufficient protective capacities to manage any threats,” said Hebert. “A child is unsafe when threats of danger exist within the family and children are vulnerable to such threats, and parents have insufficient protective capacities to manage or control threats.”

Louisiana legislation defines child abuse as the “infliction of physical or mental injury upon the child by a parent or any other person, the exploitation of a child… or the involvement of the child in any sexual act.”

PETA also sent complaints to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Louisiana  Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and Tangipahoa Parish Animal Control, claiming the farm abuses animals in their care and is keeping an endangered Siamese crocodile in an inadequate pen.  

“We take all complaints seriously and look into the allegations that are made to determine whether there are any Animal Welfare Act non-compliances,” said Lindsay Cole, spokeswoman for USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service in an interview with the Associated Press.

Kliebert’s Turtle and Alligator Farm could not be reached for comment at the time of this writing.