Conservationists have expressed outrage over the lack of US wildlife ownership laws after the slaughter of 49 animals, including 18 rare Bengal tigers, set free from a private Ohio farm.
“Quite frankly, nobody should have these animals in the first place, so we need to take steps to change laws to make that a reality,” said Adam Roberts, executive vice president of Born Free USA. “These animals belong in accredited facilities with people who can handle them appropriately.”
Bears, lions, tigers, wolves and monkeys ran amok when owner Terry Thompson, 62, flung open the enclosures at his Muskingum County animal farm near the town of Zanesville on Tuesday evening and then shot himself.
Police following shoot-to-kill orders, some of them armed only with handguns, said they had no choice but to exterminate the animals to protect local residents — and in some cases themselves.
“Public safety was our No. 1 concern,” Sheriff Matt Lutz said. “We are not talking about your normal, everyday house cat or dog.”
By Wednesday, 49 animals were dead. Only six were captured alive — a grizzly bear, three leopards and two monkeys. Another monkey was still thought to be on the loose or eaten by a lion.
There had been at least three dozen complaints since 2004 about Thompson’s exotic menagerie — including a giraffe grazing by a highway and a monkey in a tree — and he had faced more serious charges of animal mistreatment.
Conservationists have for years demanded strict US wildlife ownership laws, especially in Alabama, Idaho, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, West Virginia and Wisconsin, where no such laws exist.
“All eight states that don’t have regulations should immediately have an executive order by the governor banning the keeping or sale of these animals,” Roberts said. “Stop people acquiring these animals full stop. I always ask myself, what is it going to take? Is it going to take a woman getting mauled nearly to death by a chimpanzee, as happened in Connecticut? Well, no. People around the country can still have primates.”
“Is this going to open up the eyes of the people in Ohio, which is one of the worst states in the country on the exotic pets issues? I sure hope it does, because this could have been worse. People could have been killed,” he said.
His call found one advocate in Democratic Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich, also a leading animal rights advocate.
“I am hopeful that in light of this most recent tragedy, Governor [John] Kasich will heed the calls of the Humane Society of the United States and the public, and quickly enact appropriate restrictions on the ownership of exotic animals,” he said in a written statement.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) called on states to introduce a ban on the private ownership of exotic animals.
“A ban is really the answer to this,” said Delcianna Winders, PETA’s director of captive animal law enforcement. “Private citizens just aren’t capable of giving these animals what they need.”
For the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the loss of 18 Bengal tigers was particularly devastating as the number of tigers in the wild has declined rapidly, from about 100,000 at the beginning of the last century to as few as 3,200.
Leigh Henry, a leading WWF expert on captive tigers, said there are thought to be an astonishing 5,000 tigers held in the US, the vast majority of them, about 95 percent, in private hands.
“The current patchwork of laws in the United States regulating these captive tigers is inexcusable,” she said. “In Ohio and seven other states you can just go and buy a tiger with no requirement for any kind of license or permit.”
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