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Canton
Repository...
Exotic
pets: We don’t get it, either
October 30, 2011
The
issue: Ownership of exotic animals
in Ohio
Our view: Lax stance on regulation
puts animals, neighbors, law enforcement at risk
Is
it possible that Gov. John Kasich
and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals agree on something?
Kasich,
asked this week if he wants to
ban all Ohioans from owning wild animals, said, “I have a really hard
time
understanding why somebody ought to have a grizzly bear on their
private compound,
or lions or Bengal tigers. I just don’t get it.”
PETA,
meanwhile, is lobbying for a
total ban on private ownership of exotic animals in Ohio.
The
issue has arisen, of course, in
the wake of the disaster earlier this month in Muskingum County, where
the
owner of more than 50 wild animals set them free before killing himself.
PETA
is far from alone in criticizing
Ohio’s lax stance on wild-animal ownership. The Humane Society of the
United
States says Ohio is one of only eight states without regulations on
private
ownership of exotic animals. In the last eight years, HSUS says, it has
documented 22 serious incidents involving wild animals kept as pets in
Ohio.
Meanwhile,
ordinary Ohioans, too, are
struggling to “get it” — to understand why their neighbors should be
permitted
to keep dangerous animals just because they want to.
Not
only does this put the animals at
risk of mistreatment and pose a danger to neighbors, it also puts law
enforcement officers in jeopardy. Muskingum County sheriff’s deputies
had to
put their own lives on the line, in circumstances they were ill
prepared for,
when they tracked down and killed 49 of the animals freed by Terry
Thompson.
We’re at a loss to understand the criticism from some quarters of the
deputies,
who had to act quickly to ensure the safety of people in a wide area
beyond
Thompson’s property.
Kasich
has given a committee until
Nov. 30 to analyze the regulatory situation and make recommendations.
Common
sense says the committee will come to the same conclusion as Jack
Hanna,
director emeritus of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium: “No more lions and
tigers
and bears as pets.”
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this and other articles at the
Canton Repository
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