It’s official: Mount Hope, Ohio, is the worst town in the U.S. for animals, according to PETA. At the Mt. Hope Auction’s Mid Ohio Alternative Animal and Bird Sale—where sick, scared, and exploited animals are sold to the highest bidder—young otters who should still have been with their mothers were heard crying and seen reaching out of a crate and a water buffalo with face lacerations from a halter that was too small was apparently left without veterinary care, among other signs of cruelty. PETA submitted a formal complaint to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) about the Mt. Hope Auction and will do everything in its power to make sure this hellhole is held accountable for its atrocities.

We reported a number of incidents at the auction’s November 2023 event, including the following:

Animals were left without food or water.
Animals were confined to severely crowded or inadequately sized cages.
Ailing animals were in need of veterinary care, including a sheep with overgrown hooves, goats with nose and eye discharge, and a water buffalo whose halter had become embedded in their face, inflicting a deep laceration.

What Happens to Animals at the Mt. Hope Auction?

Three times a year, the Mt. Hope Auction grotesquely crams thousands of animals into barren, severely crowded pens and stacked cages in its barns. Between September 2022 and March 2023, USDA inspectors cited it 36 times for just three events, averaging a dozen citations per event. The USDA issued Mt. Horror an official warning in January 2023.

The Mt. Hope Auction—where thousands of sensitive, intelligent animals are treated as nothing more than inanimate objects—is speciesism on full display. Help us urge its owners to put an end the horrors of the Mt. Hope Auction for good: