Wednesday, May 23, 2012
By Marc Kovac
COLUMBUS
Over the objections of a few Republicans, the Ohio House and Senate finalized legislation Tuesday limiting the private ownership of dangerous wild animals.
Senate Bill 310 passed the House 87-9, and the Senate concurred 31-1, sending the bill to Gov. John Kasich.
The governor plans to sign the bill, said Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols.
“You’ll remember the three goals of drafting this bill,” said Sen. Troy Balderson, a Republican from Zanesville. “It was to protect our citizens, to protect current, legitimate, law-abiding wild-animal owners and to protect the animals themselves. The bill accomplished those three goals.”
SB 310 categorizes bears, tigers, lions, elephants, Komodo dragons, crocodiles and other species as “dangerous wild animals” and also categorizes monkeys, tamarins and other restricted primates.
Existing owners in both categories would be banned from acquiring new animals after the law takes effect. They could keep the ones they have as long as they register with the state, implant microchips, meet care standards and obtain proper permits.
The bill also categorizes a variety of anacondas, pythons and other restricted snakes, with owners required to obtain possession and propagation permits.
Anyone not holding the proper permits or meeting state requirements would be banned from having dangerous wild animals as of 2014.
A number of amendments were added during deliberations in the Ohio House, potentially lowering fees for owners of smaller numbers of animals, exempting additional primates often used as service animals from regulation and calling for the creation of a study commission to develop plans to respond to state and county emergencies such as that in Zanesville, in which dozens of tigers, lions, bears and other animals were let loose by their suicidal owner.
Animal-rights advocates praised lawmakers’ action on the bill Tuesday.
“This legislation ends Ohio’s status as a free-for-all state for private ownership of dangerous wild animals,” Karen Minton, Ohio state director for the Humane Society of the United States, said in a released statement.