Blue Zoo is being evicted from its Jordan Creek Town Center location after allegedly falling behind on rent payments, adding a new layer to the closure of an aquarium that spent much of its short time in Iowa under scrutiny.
The for-profit aquarium announced May 12 that it would close on May 25, just two years after opening, citing what it described as a “substantial increase in rent.” Dallas County court filings, however, show the landlord terminated Blue Zoo’s lease weeks earlier and obtained a default judgment after the company’s representatives failed to appear in court.
Staff at the 20,000-square-foot facility that marketed interactive experiences, including stingray touch pools and a walk-through aviary filled with parakeets, will be working to relocate thousands of animals by mid-June.
Concerns shared by former and current staff, federal inspection reports and animal rights organizations paint a picture of a facility dogged by criticism almost from the moment it opened.
The scrutiny followed Blue Zoo through much of its brief run in West Des Moines, especially after the aquarium euthanized a bamboo shark that bit an employee in 2024. The incident that ricocheted across national social media because of its unlikely setting: a shark bite in the middle of inland Iowa.
A crowded aquarium, weeks from closing
On a recent visit by the Des Moines Register following the announced closing, families crowded around stingray touch pools while children in yellow ponchos ran through the aquarium’s watery playground and giggled as they stuck their hands into the “pedicure fish” tanks to be nibbled by the small fish.
A tank labeled “Titans” held massive pacu and red-tailed catfish. Blacktip reef sharks circled through thousands of gallons of water in the centerpiece aquarium. Faux rock formations stretched floor-to-ceiling throughout the attraction, built as an immersive walk-through experience.
Apart from a somewhat bare gift shop, there were few signs that the aquarium was preparing to shut down.
Blue Zoo was behind on rent in March, court records allege
Dallas County court filings show Village at Jordan Creek, LLC, the owner of the aquarium’s building at the Jordan Creek Town Center, filed a forcible entry and detainer action against Blue Zoo Des Moines, LLC on April 13, alleging the aquarium defaulted on its lease through nonpayment of rent.
Blue Zoo received a “Default and Demand for Payment” notice March 4 and failed to pay the balance within 10 days, according to the filings. The lease was terminated March 14, and a three-day notice to vacate was served in April.
The case proceeded to an April 28 hearing in Dallas County District Court. Blue Zoo failed to appear, the court records state, and a judge entered a default judgment in favor of the landlord.
The following day, the court issued a writ directing the Dallas County Sheriff to remove Blue Zoo from the property and restore possession to Village at Jordan Creek, if necessary.
Despite the eviction order, Blue Zoo remains open to the public until Memorial Day.
Representatives for Jordan Creek Town Center and its parent company did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Blue Zoo, which had operated four other facilities across the country, has been negotiating with the landlord for months in an attempt to remain open, Jessi Laine, a spokesperson for the chain, told the Register.
The company announced May 19 that its location in Rogers, Arkansas, would also close this summer. The three other locations remain open.
“We worked with legal counsel and made every effort to negotiate terms that would allow us to stay, but we were ultimately unable to reach an agreement that made continued operations sustainable,” Laine said.
Laine acknowledged Blue Zoo “fell behind on rent while trying to find a solution.”
The company did not disclose how far behind it was on rent payments. It did not characterize the rent increase as a sudden spike or dispute that the rent expectations were part of the existing lease structure.
“When we signed the lease, we understood the terms and responsibilities involved, and we respect that our landlord has a business to run just as we do,” Laine said.
Laine said Blue Zoo Des Moines expects to remain in the space until mid-June while relocating animals and winding down operations.
She maintained the closure was financial, not operational.
“In every other meaningful way, Blue Zoo Des Moines was doing well,” Laine said. “Our animals were healthy and thriving, our team was doing an incredible job, and families continued to create magical memories with us every day.”
Staff describe fights with ‘higher ups,’ warn move-out could ‘stress’ animals
An employee working the front desk during the Register’s visit was heard telling other guests that Blue Zoo was seeing some of its busiest days yet. The employee, who declined to be identified, repeated the same sentiment to the Register.
Behind the scenes, the aquarium is preparing to dismantle and relocate thousands of animals.
While most animals will move to other Blue Zoo facilities, others will be placed with “trusted zoos, aquariums, and professional animal care facilities,” Laine told the Register.
The company expects the relocation process to take roughly two weeks and it will begin after the aquarium closes, she said.
Current employees publicly described fears online about the toll the mammoth effort could take.
Staff would normally take time training animals to willingly go into moving boxes or bags, Krista Thompson, who identified as a Blue Zoo employee, wrote on Facebook. Thompson said the move could cause animals unnecessary stress.
Wes Noon, who also identified as a Blue Zoo employee, responded to one person on Facebook, saying that closing down the location “will do absolutely nothing for these animals you care so much about but put them under more stress.”
Thompson defended the staff’s care for the animals in response to another commenter on Facebook.
“Do animal hoarders take their animals to the vet the second they even look at us weird?” Thompson wrote. “Do animal hoarders fight higher ups to upgrade enclosures and sometimes even spend their own money to ensure the well being of the animals?”
The looming move hangs over a facility that took months to build out.
Blue Zoo first announced plans for the Des Moines aquarium in September 2023. At opening, the company said the location had been under renovation for close to a year and would bring roughly 50 jobs to the metro.
Federal inspections and criticism followed Blue Zoo
The aquarium’s short run in Iowa repeatedly drew criticism.
Federal inspection reports tied to Tiger Family Entertainment, the name Blue Zoo Des Moines used in U.S. Department of Agriculture records, document multiple parakeet deaths inside the aquarium’s walk-through aviary.
One citation followed a May 22, 2024, incident, a day after the aquarium opened, when a child jumped from a parent’s lap onto a parakeet, killing it.
Inspectors wrote they observed birds gathering around visitors’ shoes because of spilled bird seed and noted birds placing “their heads under the heels of visitors.”
Another “critical” citation followed a September 2025 inspection documenting three more parakeet deaths tied to guest interactions, including one bird killed after a guest dropped a cellphone onto it and another after an employee tripped over a guest’s foot.
USDA records show the facility’s most recent inspection, in January 2026, found no additional cited violations.
Only the birds fell under the agency’s inspection purview, as the federal Animal Welfare Act only covers certain “warm-blooded animals,” while the fish and reptiles housed at Blue Zoo fall outside that definition.
Blue Zoo made changes to its aviary experience. Those were visible during the Register’s recent visit.
Before entering the aviary, guests were instructed to shuffle their feet to avoid stepping on birds. Staff escorted visitors in and out of the room, and guests could no longer freely walk around the enclosure, instead being directed to sit on benches and keep their feet planted on the ground. Children whose feet could not reach the floor were told to sit cross-legged on the benches.
The aviary now contains around 150 parakeets, roughly half the number originally housed there, according to staff.
Former employee Amy Lynn, who said she briefly worked at Blue Zoo shortly after opening, described the room as “chaotic.”
“The parakeet room had way too many birds, and you couldn’t walk in there either without risk of stepping on the parakeets,” Lynn told the Register. “It was so bad, like kids were stepping on birds all the time.”
Lynn, who said she previously worked in veterinary clinics and animal care businesses, also questioned staff training and animal care practices.
“We weren’t given proper knowledge of any of the fish, and we were told to just make something up to tell kids and families about the species because they wouldn’t notice if it was true or not,” she said.
She also described routinely seeing animal deaths.
“It was daily that animals were dying, and it should not happen that much,” Lynn said. “When an animal died, it was pretty normal.”
Lynn alleged staff sometimes concealed dead or dying animals from public view.
“They had starfish eating each other, and then just like putting the arm back on it to make it look like it was still alive,” she said.
Current employees strongly disputed broader allegations of neglect and publicly defended the aquarium after news of the closure spread online.
“Our animals are not neglected — that is an insult to the people that work with them every single day and care for them,” wrote Tracy Fischer, who identified as a Blue Zoo employee on Facebook. “They are caring individuals who give it their all.”
Laine defended Blue Zoo’s pursuit of accreditation through the Zoological Association of America, saying the Des Moines location was in the “final stages” of the process.
The ZAA is a smaller accrediting organization than the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which accredits major zoological institutions, including Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines.
Critics, including Humane World for Animals, formerly the Humane Society of the United States, have argued that the ZAA maintains looser standards and has accredited roadside zoos and exotic animal exhibitors tied to animal cruelty and wildlife trafficking cases.
No Blue Zoo locations appear to be accredited by the AZA. None of the company’s four other locations appears in ZAA’s public directory of accredited facilities either.
Laine said the Des Moines location had completed walkthroughs with ZAA representatives and had received “encouraging feedback.”
When asked about Blue Zoo’s accreditation status, ZAA Operations Coordinator Kimber Hendrix declined to comment, saying the organization’s accreditation process is confidential.
Preston Moore, Iowa state director for Humane World for Animals, said Blue Zoo’s interactive model itself was the problem.
“Blue Zoo ignored the plea and instead continued to embrace a dangerous and inhumane business model that resulted in the cruel and unnecessary deaths of birds and other wild animals, as well as injuries to staff,” Moore said in a statement to the Register.
Moore urged the company to place the animals in accredited facilities instead of other locations, and said the interactive model subjects animals to “stress, neglect and a lifetime of mistreatment.”
Nick El Hajj is a reporter at the Register. He can be reached atnelhajj@gannett.com. Follow him on X at @nick_el_hajj.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Blue Zoo Des Moines faced eviction at Jordan Creek for past due rent
Reporting by Nick El Hajj, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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