Topic: Exotic Animal Escape

[Dragonfire]

If any of you heard about the...well...big mess in Ohio with exotic animals being loose outside Zanesville....that isn't that far from where I live.  None of the animals were near me, but I know some people who live right in the area where it was all going on.  I don't know the guy who had the animals, but I heard stuff from people at class today - class for work.

I actually hadn't realized before that the guy had those animals.  Evidently, Ohio has very very weak laws - practically nonexistent - when it comes to people owning exotic animals.  When the new governor took office in January, he let a law expire that would have forced the closing of this place and others in the state.  There is supposed to be someone else in that general area that has lions or tigers or something.  The governor is getting flack for letting that law expire..footage from back in January is being shown where he basically laughed it off as a law that wasn't needed.

It's a horrible situation.  The sheriff's department was out with assault weapons last night, shooting the animals.  I guess six of them were captured and taken to the Columbus zoo, but the rest of them were killed.  I've heard different numbers...about 50 were let loose. 

My mom heard today that Canada and England were reporting on this story.

[Kathy]

It's one of the top stories in Buffalo. It is reported that the owner recently got out of jail and his wife left him.

Then, a few weeks ago he received a court order that required him to give up his animals.

I guess this was too much for him to handle so he released all the animals before killing himself.

Because they were on the loose at night, the poor things had to be killed instead of being tranquilized. The drugs take too long to work, the animals would hide and that might have resulted in loss of human life.

I feel for the owner - he just reached his breaking point. But he put people at grave risk and those poor innocent creatures died because of him. Some of them were quite rare - such a shame.

[Jimmy]

My mom heard today that Canada and England were reporting on this story.

Catch it yesterday in the news, they talk about it at RDI (it's our french canadian CNN) but as we have more important thing going on here they didn't say much...

Didn't even realize it was near you Marie...
At least here the laws are very stict on this, we can't even own a monkey anymore

[Dragonfire]

I've heard a lot that he had...issues to say the least.  If he had truly cared anything about those animals, he would have called someone to get them and made sure they were taken care of instead of doing what he did.  Or at the very least, not let them all loose before killing himself. 

I had heard that his wife had an affair while he was in jail..and left him for the other guy.  I don't know for sure though.

I guess some people are going to use this ...mess to help pass more laws so people like him can't get those types of animals.  Once he was sent to jail, the animals should have been sent to a a preserve or something.

Jimmy, this happened outside of Zanesville on the ...west side of the town.  I live south of Zanesville.  So it wasn't right by me, but it was still fairly close.

[MEJHarrison]

If any of you heard about the...well...big mess in Ohio with exotic animals being loose outside Zanesville....that isn't that far from where I live.  None of the animals were near me, but I know some people who live right in the area where it was all going on.  I don't know the guy who had the animals, but I heard stuff from people at class today - class for work.

I did see that story.  Caught my eye because I was born in Ohio (lived there till I was 11).  Up near Youngstown.  I never realized that's where you lived!