California: the only US state where it is explicitly illegal to trespass into animal exhibits.
No “intent to occupy”? No problem!
It seems like it should be common sense that it’s illegal and/or prosecutable for someone to trespass into a zoo exhibit, right? And yet… it’s not nearly that simple. In most states, trespass is trespass, and it doesn’t matter what type of private property it occurs on: there isn’t anything that would handle entering an animal exhibit differently from breaking into an abandoned property or someone’s fenced land. It turns out that California is the only state in which this is handled differently - California actually has a law that explicitly differentiates trespass into animal exhibits/containment from other types of trespass. How that came about is a quite a story, and not what you’d think!
While going through a list of state regs regarding zoos and aquariums for a project I’ve been working on, a piece of the penal code in California caught my attention. Malicious Mischief. 602.13: Entering animal enclosure at zoo, circus, or traveling animal exhibit. I admit I jumped to some conclusions about where it came from! It was passed in 2010, and it’s in California… obviously, I thought, this was because of problems with protestors jumping into cetacean tanks. And… nope, nope, that was not it at all.
In September of 2009, a 21-year-old man somehow managed to get into the main part of the grizzly habitat at the San Francisco Zoo. And this isn’t just a case of ducking through fences, such as occurred with the recent San Diego Zoo elephant trespass: this guy had to climb either an 15-20 foot rock wall topped by hot wire, or jump into (and then climb out of) at 14-foot deep moat. According to a statement by the zoo, the “armed response team, whose members had been hastily summoned by zoo staff after a visitor reported the entry, then fired a warning shot, and both bears scurried to their den” and the trespasser was removed unharmed except for burns from the electric fencing. He was charged on two counts: for trespassing and for disturbing dangerous animals.
Mental health issues were a major factor at play in the court’s decisions regarding those two charges - the latter charge was dismissed because the jury found that the bears showed no real signs of disturbance or distress. The former charge, the trespassing one, is where everything got weird. The man was acquitted by a judge for the trespass charge from climbing into the grizzly exhibit… because the man had no intention of residing in the habitat. If your response to that is “wait, what the hell” you’re in good company.
The very short version of the story is that California’s general trespass laws don’t cover something like a zoo exhibit - they deal with fenced and signed land and property. But if you’re already on the property (like at a zoo) and do something inappropriate to get into a prohibited area, it would fall under a different section of the penal code. And the wording of that statute? “Every person who willfully commits a trespass by any of the following acts is guilty of a misdemeanor: (…) (m) Entering and occupying real property or structures of any kind without the consent of the owner, the owner’s agent, or the person in lawful possession.” The key word there is occupy. It’s not enough to just enter - you have to intend to stay. And that’s why the guy who trespassed in the grizzly bear exhibit was acquitted on the trespassing charges. At the time of the trespass, he was apparently in an altered mental state, and it was argued that this prevented him from even realized he was entering an animal exhibit. According to his lawyer, “to be convicted of trespassing, someone has to seek "occupancy," akin to squatting. [The lawyer] argued that [the trespasser] ‘did not intend to make the bear enclosure his place of residency, nor did his actions convey any indication that he would.’” A local media outlet reported that “prosecutors were mystified by the ruling, saying trespassing does not have to mean an intent to squat in a particular location.”
Needless to say, the San Francisco Zoo was not happy about this outcome. They reached out to Assemblyman Curt Hagman, who was on the Assembly Public Safety Committee, about the need for stricter and more specific legislation regarding trespassing into zoo exhibits. The bill he introduced in January 2010 was AB 1567, and when it was passed later that year it created Penal Code 602.13. During the course of debate over the bill, it was amended to expand it from just zoo exhibits to any animal exhibits at facilities licensed to display animals. It was also written so that it could be enforced as an infraction or a misdemeanor (with different penalties) depending on the severity of the incident. By the time it passed it was supported by the San Francisco Zoo, the Sacramento Zoo, the California Association of Zoos and Aquariums, and multiple other tourism- and business-based California organizations.
So what does the law actually say? Let’s take a look.
(a) Every person who enters into an animal enclosure at a zoo, circus, or traveling animal exhibit, if the zoo, circus, or exhibit is licensed or permitted to display living animals to the public, and if signs prohibiting entrance into the animal enclosures have been posted either at the entrance to the zoo, circus, or traveling animal exhibit, or on the animal enclosure itself, without the consent of the governing authority of the zoo, circus, or traveling animal exhibit, or a representative authorized by the governing authority, is guilty of an infraction or a misdemeanor, subject to Section 19.8. This subdivision shall not apply to an employee of the zoo, circus, or traveling animal exhibit, or to a public officer acting within the course and scope of his or her employment.
(b) For purposes of this section, “zoo” means a permanent or semipermanent collection of living animals kept in enclosures for the purpose of displaying the animals to the public. The term “zoo” includes a public aquarium displaying aquatic animals.
(c) For purposes of this section, an “animal enclosure” means the interior of any cage, stall, container, pen, aquarium or tank, or other discrete containment area that is used to house or display an animal and that is not generally accessible to the public.
(d) Prosecution under this section does not preclude prosecution under any other provision of law.
Pretty simple and straightforward, really. If while at a venue used to display animals, you cross into an area used to contain animals that is off-limits to the public, you’re in trouble. Staff and government officials are exempt.
The penalties are pretty straightforward, too. According to the last analysis done by the CA state legislature when the bill was passed, it makes animal exhibit trespass “an infraction punishable by a fine not exceeding $250 or a misdemeanor punishable by up to six-months in the county jail, by a fine not exceed $1,000, or both.”
Whenever someone climbs into a zoo exhibit and gets hurt - or worse, gets an animal killed - there’s always an inevitable cry that the zoo should sue them for trespassing. But few states have laws as tightly targeted to that type of trespass as California… and even when they exist, they don’t always get used.
In March of 2021, a man was arrested for crossing into the San Diego Zoo elephant habitat while carrying his infant daughter. He was charged with felony child endangerment (reasonably), and also with a trespassing misdemeanor under 602.13. For reasons that remain unclear, the judge overseeing his case dismissed the misdemeanor trespassing charge entirely. The Los Angeles Zoo did not appear to pursue trespassing charges in 2011 when a woman jumped into their elephant exhibit; they reported an illegal trespass to the police when a man jumped a fence to spank their hippopotamus in 2018, but nothing appears to have come off that charge. Other incidents where it seems like the statute might be relevant, such as the theft of a lemur from the Santa Ana zoo in 2018, didn’t have any charges brought under that part of the penal code.
So as much as it might seem simple that there should be a remedy under the law for charging people who trespass into animal exhibits with a crime, even California’s very specific law on the topic isn’t enforced frequently. More zoos might look into lobbying for similar laws in their states, but it’s unclear how successful they’d be at giving facilities a guaranteed way to pursue the issue