Legal limits on ownership of wild animals are needed now

It is difficult to find words that describe all that is wrong about the Ohio Legislature’s inability to draft and pass a law that would bring some long-overdue regulation to the private ownership of wild or exotic animals in the state.

Responding to the tragic outcome last October in Muskingum County when the unstable owner of a menagerie released more than 50 wild animals on an unsuspecting community before killing himself, West Virginia is close to passing a law to protect its residents from such madness.

Ohio and West Virginia were two of only a handful of states that hadn’t bothered to address the danger presented by private individuals keeping wild animals. Ohio had established a Dangerous Wild Animals Work Group last summer, and it redoubled its efforts after the October debacle. The group issued its recommendations in less than two months, calling for a ban on casual ownership of dangerous wild animals, effective Jan. 1, 2014. That presumably would provide time for people who currently own wild animals and are ill-equipped to control them to find qualified new owners inside or outside of Ohio.

Things slow down

But any sense of urgency that existed in October is dissipating quickly.

Ohio House Speaker William Batchelder told reporters last month that hearings will have to be held to determine what animals should be included in any ban and what safeguards are needed.

Then, remarkably, State Sen. Troy Balderson of Zanesville said he was working on his own bill that would carve out exceptions, including a grandfather clause for those who already own wild animals. Yes, he’s from Zanesville, the town that captured international headlines when Terry Thompson released 56 lions, tigers, bears, wolves, monkeys and leopards from his farm Oct. 18.

Why is Ohio virtually alone among states in holding onto this notion that individuals have a right to own animals that present a clear danger to their communities?

Zookeeper shocked

Jack Hanna of the Columbus Zoo, who has traveled the world introducing live and TV audiences to exotic animals, expressed shock last week in Columbus over the Legislature’s delay in taking action and in attempts to water down the working group’s recommendations.

“If you knew someone was building a bomb in his basement, wouldn’t you pass a bill to stop him?” Hanna asked editors attending a convention of the Ohio Newspaper Association. There are 200 tigers and lions in Ohio, he said, and some people are buying more, hoping to take advantage of a grandfather clause.

In Zanesville, 48 of the animals that escaped from Thompson’s compound were shot an killed, an action that was necessary, Hanna said, because night was falling and the threat to human life would have been too great if the animals had been left free to roam. Hanna has taken some heat for supporting the Muskingum sheriff, but Hanna knows better than most the potential dangers that were involved.

He also knows Ohio’s foot-dragging is dangerous. In other contexts, when a tragic occurrence calls attention to a safety shortcoming, people react. Screens and fences are erected to protect spectators at hockey games and Nascar races from flying pucks or hurtling race cars.

But when people buy and keep dangerous animals, often to the detriment of the animals themselves and to the safety of innocent bystanders, the state is paralyzed by misplaced priorities. People who make up a tiny minority are working hard to convince legislators that their desire to indulge in an extravagant hobby is more important than common sense limits on the ownership of dangerous beasts.

Apparently they never learned the childhood lesson that one man’s freedom to swing his arm ends at the other person’s nose.