I don’t think anyone’s posted on the exotic animal bloodbath in Ohio. Here’s the local paper’s coverage, and here’s an awful picture that’s been circulating on Twitter.
I’m sure we can second-guess the cops on this one, but the guy who put those animals in the care of the law was clearly an asshole, and I hate to think what those animals endured during their lives.
Update: This is awful:
“There will soon be a knock on your door,” Hanna said. “I intend to do whatever it takes to pass legislation that will put teeth into keeping people from just buying an exotic animal to just have it. There are only 1,400 Bengal tigers in the wild today and this man had 18 of them. We’re going to make sure there are strict regulations, permits will be required and conditions will be observed.”
whiskey
At least $50k worth of taxidermy there. When life gives you dead exotic animals, you make dead exotic animalade.
Elizabelle
I don’t know what it says about me that the cell phone picture of a purportedly injured or dead Qaddafi bothers me not a whit, but seeing photos of rows of those majestic animals lying dead was traumatic.
Not going to click on your photo, mistermix. Yesterday’s NYTimes pic was enough.
Scott
Hard to believe that guy had over a percent of all the world’s Bengal tigers. He’s the guy I ultimately hold responsible for all this…
NobodySpecial
I’m trying to figure out what’s so awful about making sure that a private individual doesn’t get a dangerous animal just to have a dangerous animal.
nathaniel
To be accurate, he didn’t have one percent of the world’s Bengali tigers. I read somewhere there are more of them in captivity then in the wild. So he only had half a percent.
NonyNony
Well thank Grod for that. Maybe Jack Hanna will be able to get the legislature to do what animal rights activists have been trying to get done for the last couple of decades.
And I mean that with all sincerity because Hanna is an icon in Columbus. But it does make me wonder – did he not realize that this has been a problem in the state for years? Does it really take an epic tragedy like this one to get people to understand this? We’ve had “pet” bear maulings and “pet” wildcat assaults that happen every once in a while for years all around the state and … nothing. Hell it was bad enough that Strickland signed an executive order saying that people needed to register their exotic animals with the state because it was so bad and he couldn’t get the legislature to move on it (an order that was completely ignored by the Kasich administration, and expired a few months back, and now the admin apologists are making excuses and actually blaming Strickland for the fact that they didn’t want to enforce it, but whatever – par for the course for those fuck-ups).
I mean what the fuck? Does it really take a mass slaughter to get people to think “hey maybe we should have people license their Bengal tigers?”
El Cid
Well, the faux market fundamentalists do love their analogy of capitalism to ‘nature red in tooth and claw’, so clearly we need do the opposite and encourage the proliferation of farms for huge, human-preying predators and bar government oppression of their breeders and the un-Constushul violation of their rights when we confiscate their rightful profits and coerce them into spending money on ‘cages’ or ‘fences’.
If Americans don’t like living next to a small business where tigers and boas and bears roam, nobody forced them to live there.
Scott
Christ, could someone please tranq motoko? I’m pretty sure mistermix said the “owner” was the bad guy here…
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Samara Morgan: Did you just read the title of mistermix’s post and start your rant? I know you love your I’m-angry-at-everyone-all-the-time thing, but it really was kind of pointless.
At least the tigers were not Bengali-Americans.
geg6
This fucker who did this, the “owner” of those animals, took the cowardly way out and happily put everyone else in the community in danger and caused the tragic deaths of these beautiful animals. This absolutely infuriates me and, I’m sure, Hanna feels it even more. Saw a report last night that said that OH has one of the least strict state laws in the nation in regard to ownership of exotic animals. There is no way on earth that some asshole in OH should be able to own and, most likely (how could it be otherwise?), mistreat over a full one percent (actually more) of the world’s Bengal tigers?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Scott: Do you think tranqing will be enough? She does look like she’s pretty hungry.
existential fish
JOB KILLING JACK HANNA
pk
Apparently yes. What is even sadder is that these animals do not belong in this climate. Their natural habitat is the tropics. It’s extremely cruel to keep them in fucking Ohio!
Steve
I thought it was already illegal pretty much everywhere to keep wild animals of this type.
Joel
How the fuck did this guy get all the animals? Obviously he had some connections with poachers. Chase those connections down.
El Cid
Also too, does anyone else remember the guy in New York who was trying to found a new paradise by raising an alligator, tiger, and boa in the same apartment?
There was a documentary a couple of years ago on large wild animal keeping types, called The Tiger Next Door.
I never ever got why people I knew wanted to keep snakes capable of easily killing them, and yes, I find that extremely different than big dogs, though I don’t get the big killer dog thing either.
Napoleon
@Steve:
Not here in Ohio.
El Cid
So now 2 links is prohibited?
geg6
@Steve:
Every state has it’s own laws or lack thereof regarding exotic animals. Here in PA, I believe, you must be licensed to have them. But I have no idea what the Commonwealth’s definition of “exotic” is, so there is that problem also.
geg6
@Joel:
Not necessarily. There are, in some states, actual auctions of these animals, usually because there are too many that have been taken away or given up by people who bought them as babies and then,later, realize that a Bengal tiger or mountain lion or leopard or bear is not a pet like a dog or cat. I forget what network I was watching that had the report about how a guy like this gets animals like this (CBS Evening News, maybe?), but it was clear that it’s not hard to get them from people other than poachers.
wonkie
@NobodySpecial: How dare youinterfere with free eterprize? That’s big government regulation! What about all those canned hunt businesses in Texas? Where would they get their ainmals if people couldn’t breed them?
Seriously the exotic animal trade is protected by–guess who?==fucking southern Rethuglicans.
MikeBoyScout
Regulation Free Market Kills! . . . again.
The Invisible Hand Fairy works in mysterious ways.
Bill H.
I’m not going to second guess the Sheriff, and I watched his public statement. To me he did not look arogant or angry as some (not here) have suggested, he looked upset. He looked like, “Look people, it ripped my heart out to give that order, so don’t give me any shit about it.” There were four dozen dangerous animals, only one or two dart guns, night was at hand, and he had to protect the people whose safety was his responsibility. What else could he do?
There is the person who turned those animals loose to blame for this horrible episode, and the legislature which made it legal. Not the poor damn Shreiff who did his job.
Unsympathetic
Can’t wait for the free market crowd to defend this moron.
NonyNony
@Steve:
In Ohio there are almost no statewide regulations on animal ownership. Individual cities have their own laws and regulations, but the state has few (this is actually true about a LOT of Ohio’s laws).
So this means that just about all of the cities have some kind of laws in place restricting what kinds of animals you’re allowed to own. But if you live outside the cities there are almost no limits. And the smaller towns and townships may not have anything on the books for a variety of reasons (mostly the usual ones – it’s never been a problem so there’s been no need for a law and nobody wants to pay to enforce the law).
wonkie
@Joel: The importation of exotics into the US has diminished considerrably partly due to laws andpartly due to it not beig necessary to import exotics when many states allow private individuals to raise them. Most places require a license but in some states a license is easy to get.
A puppy miller in my state volutarily gave up “extra stock”, about a hundred sickly abused dogs. On her property in tiny cages were three wolves and a cougar. She refused to give them up and local lawenforcement refused to enforce the laws which in my state are pretty good. They refused to enforce the laws regarding her care of the dogs, too.
Fortuately a year later her boyfriedn did a public service and murdered her so all of the animals were freed. The wolves and the cougar, however, were euthanized.
The real problem is towfold: the ownership and breeding of exoptics is not a big issue to most people and therefore not of imporatance to legislative bodies, and two those who are motivated to speak out are usually the breeders and hoarders and gliberatarians and Rethugs agaisnt legislation that inhibits small businesses blah,blah blah. The same coalitio that is busy undoig Pennsylvania’s puppy mill law and the same coalitio that overrulled Missouri’s puppy mill law.
ericblair
@Bill H.:
I guess we’ll see in the inevitable investigation, but it’s like the bitching about bank and mortgage bailouts: none of this would have happened if there were regulations (that were followed) to stop the fuckup in the first place. It just seems impossible to get this through a lot of people’s heads.
Scott
EDIT: Huh, matoko apparently removed her comments. Okey-dokey.
NonyNony
@Bill H.:
Yeah – I wouldn’t recommend second-guessing the cops on this one guys. The images look awful but those animals were maltreated, starving and crazed. They’ve been trying tranqs but tranqs don’t always work and if the choice is between a starving crazed lion getting away to go maul other animals or people and shooting the starving crazed lion, a cop REALLY doesn’t have any other choice. It’s kind of in the job description that they’re SUPPOSED to be ranking general public safety higher than other considerations when they take their actions.
This isn’t like a cop kicking in a door and shooting someone’s dogs during a trumped-up drug bust. A lot of these animals represent significant threats to the community at large and the idiot owner really has given everyone in the area very little flexibility on how to react to this one.
Put it this way – how would you like to be the cop who lets the lion go and then find out later it ran into a preschool and mauled a half-dozed four year olds?
Cat
The news stories I’ve read have been contradictory, but the ‘owner’ of the animals was clearly a crazy jerk who shouldn’t have been allowed to have one, let alone hundreds of animals. He put these animals in the situation where they’d be harmed.
I’m finding something really weird about the human psyche though, finding an animal that will eat you 9 times out of 10 when its hungry to be majestic and beautiful confuses me to no end.
mistermix
@Scott: No, in a completely arbitrary and uncalled for action that violates her first, fourth and, considering the source, second amendment rights, I spammed them all and banned her for a day. I expect the trolls around here to actually get the jist of the post before they start commenting.
Bill E Pilgrim
@NonyNony: Here’s what I read this morning:
Sounds like your basic Republican in his natural habitat to me.
JenJen
This story has made me ill since it broke. Even worse is listening to Cincinnati talk radio on the way to work; the idiots on WLW were sad that they weren’t able to form a posse and shoot the animals themselves. I almost wrecked the car listening to them marvel over the photos of stacked dead animals.
The more I listen to people, the more I hate them. The casual cruelty just astounds me.
Plethded
I can’t second guess cops who come out and find a huge number of large predators running around on their beat. Cops aren’t trained for that. Who has the equipment sitting around the station house necessary to trap 20 or 30 large animals at once? Just a bad situation that nobody wants, and the person to blame is the owner that released them and the stupid anti-regulation mentality of some Americans, i.e., “I AM NOT TRULY FREE IF I CAN’T KEEP TIGERS IN MY BACKYARD.”
Napoleon
@Bill H.:
And what he did was backed up by quotes I saw from Hanna and some vets and others from the zoo and a nearby wildlife sanctuary they brought in to help out. They all seem to be of the opinion that the situation was such that trying to tranc or capture those animals was unrealistic and dangerous.
Amir Khalid
@Samara Morgan:
I actually agree with what you’re saying. The big cats and other predators on the loose were a clear and present danger to the people of Zanesville, and the sheriff had no option but to find them and kill them. Also, I don’t doubt you that in these hard times, donations to support wildlife shelters are drying up, with dire consequences for the animals.
But m_c my dear, there is a way to make your point to other people without verbal abuse. You are not doing it that way. And what did mistermix do to deserve this abuse? Is he being callous over the suffering and deaths of these animals? No. Is he wrong about what was best for them? Maybe, but your use of negative endearments won’t help convince him of that.
Dave
I wouldn’t second guess the cops here. You have grizzly bears, tigers and lions roaming around populated areas…you cannot risk trying to tranq one of them and having it run off. Or turn on you. And every cop that talked about the killings sounded sick about it.
dr.hypercube
“There are only 1,400 Bengal tigers in the wild today”
Close enough – Wikipedia says 2500.
“and this man had 18 of them.”
FALSE. At least false until he turned them loose. There is a glut of captive tigers.
Captive tiger keeping is a damn poor idea for Joe Average, but it has very little to do with tigers in the wild.
Habitat. Habitat. Habitat.
Edit – and protection from poachers/elimination of the tiger parts trade.
Scott
@Cat: I think animals in general are pretty gorgeous and awesome. I’ve been known to read CuteOverload and UglyOverload, and love ’em about the same. I’m able to think a bear is a beautiful animal at the same time as I’m able to recognize that I wouldn’t want to be anywhere close to a bear in the wild. I think most people are able to recognize that beauty and danger at the same time.
@mistermix: Fair ’nuff. And more than deserved. Matoko either needs to start taking her meds or get herself a column at RenewAmerica.
Amir Khalid
@Scott:
More likely they were removed for her, and I can’t say I disagree with that.
ETA: Officially confirmed by mistermix.
mistermix
@Dave: Just to be clear, I don’t second-guess the cops here. They did what they had to do once this guy turned loose a bunch of wild animals. Also, they apparently killed a good number of animals on their way into the house to see if the guy was alive — again, they had to do that because of his actions, and they had to do it quickly in case he could have been saved.
kay
@Bill E Pilgrim:
It’s true, too.
Conservatives are completely insane on the Humane Society. They talk about it all the time in rural areas. That’s why Kasich let the order lapse. The Humane Society conspiracy theory is rampant among the rural base.
Kasich said at the time his inaction was to “protect small business”.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Napoleon: Our previous governor, Ted Strickland, banned Ohio ownership and sale of exotics by executive order, to which King John objected (of course). He then let the order expire.
This was going to happen on some sacle – it isn’t feasible to try to sedate big cats when you’re not trained. I’m as big an animal lover as anyone, but the danger to the public simply outweighs the risks of such an attempt. To wit, someone has to supply the meds, hoping that they are the correct choice of tranquilizer, then guess at the weight of animals in question. The officers then have to load the questionably dosed tranquilizers and hit a quickly moving animal with one. Also, they do not drop instantly, unless the dose is close to, or fully, lethal – and a mistake on weight estimation can go either way, both not enough or too much. In addition, there is then the issue of arranging transportation and someone to capably assist when a really pissed off big cat or bear wakes up. The liability involved should such an attempt be made and someone is injured (likely) is astronomical.
It is just not as simple as it sounds. And I’ve tranquilized many horses, for a variety of procedures, both with and without a vet next to me, so I know a bit about this. And that was without the complications of administering the drugs by gunshot. It’s simply not as easy as we’d like to believe. And I’m duly horrified by what happened; I’m just in the position of pointing out there wasn’t really a safe alternative.
harlana
Alex Bennett had a good point yesterday, these animals did not ask to be brought here nor did they have any choice in the matter, and now they are being systematically killed even though none of this is their fault. We also want to kill any animals who invade our space (looking for food in our gardens and yards) because we have pushed them out of their natural habitat with our stinking, greedy overdevelopment.
Humans are disgusting.
artem1s
quite a few of these characters are hooked up with the Ohio militia and second amendment wackos. I’m pretty sure there was some talk at one time about a exotic hunting reserve being set up down in that part of the state. may have been part of what Strickland was trying to shed some light on. I don’t think it ever came close to opening but the whole issue did bring some icky people out into the light of day.
the idea of Ohio having regulations that prohibit commerce of any kind has become completely laughable. it has been the fricking wild west here for 30 years. the S&L crisis started here and the subprime problem reached its peak here in Cleveland 10 years before the rest of the country. Now the ODNR will let anyone set up oil or natural gas rig in their back yard and pretty soon the state forests will be denuded for the sake of a couple of bucks. oh, and if you want to, you can pack heat even in your local bar!
Frankensteinbeck
@NonyNony:
I worked at a zoo, where everyone loved the animals dearly. The policy was that if the lions got out, they were shot. Period. You don’t take chances.
celtidragonchick
@geg6:
The ONLY big African cat that can be hand raised and trusted as an adult to be friendly with humans for life is the cheetah. Every other great cat may turn on you or another person. Maybe not…there are some stories of life long friendships with lions and such, but the risk is very real.
Cheetahs are a different story, and they used to be very highly valued as hunting animals and ornamental pets in antiquity. They are superior to dogs in just about way that can be measuered (according to some) and remain friendly with humans if raised from birth by humans. Huge rewards used to be offered by kings for anybody who could get cheetahs to breed in captivity, but this was not accomplished until the 1960’s. There are records of royal stables in the Orient with over 1,000 cheetahs, but they were all captured as cubs in the wild. The breeding issue is the only reason why cheetahs are not considered a domesticated animal, since they fit the other criteria (able to interact well with people and serve a useful purpose to people)
NonyNony
@dr.hypercube:
Ah I see you are not familiar with central Ohio patois. What Hanna was saying can be better understood as “There are only 1400 Bengal tigers in the wild today and this man had 18 Bengal tigers.” Not that he had 18 wild Bengal tigers, just that he had 18 Bengal tigers. Hanna was using a typical construct to show just how ridiculous the number of tigers the man had was, not trying to give some percentage of wild tigers that this guy was holding.
I honestly didn’t read it with your interpretation until you pointed it out. But that’s probably because I live in Columbus Ohio and the read I gave is the natural one for around here.
kay
@NonyNony:
Strickland’s order would have prevented this person from holding the animals, because this person had a prior animal cruelty charge.
Kasich can lie all he wants. It’s really and truly on him.
harlana
no lectures, pls, about cops doing what they have to do – i understand all that, just an observation on society – i wish i didn’t have to issue disclaimers on everything i say, but there it is
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@kay: It is all on Kasich, but he will lie all day and all night about as we know. The fuck. He is the epitome of the arrogant, mendacious, greedy and heartless hack to which his crowd all aspires. In that sense he is King John indeed.
kay
@artem1s:
Conservatives in rural areas believe that the Humane Society is working to regulate animal feed and slaughter operations. Agribusiness. CAFO’s.
That’s why Kasich let the order lapse, and turned it over to his (ag industry captured) Natural Resources agency. Because he knows they won’t regulate.
Scott
@harlana: Have you read any of the other comments here? What would you have the cops do? Somehow find enough tranquilizer darts for 30+ large wild animals, all starving and aggressive, in a rural area, with night closing in? Even if they could find that much tranquilizer, how would they find the trained manpower to safely confine those animals? Where would they move ’em to?
It’s easy to say things should’ve been done different when you don’t have to worry about actually putting those pie-in-the-sky non-solutions to the test. What would you have done differently?
EDIT: Okay, okay, disclaimer read and accepted. I was already writin’ this durn thing before that popped up…
Joel
@harlana: Most of the animals that “invade” human space in developed america are ones that benefitted from human-driven habitat destruction and reshaping. Think squirrels, rats, sparrows, pigeons, etc.
NonyNony
@kay:
Oh yeah – that’s becoming clearer by the moment. Of course he’s got his apologists out in full force to deny it. Hell they’re trying to blame STRICKLAND for issuing an executive order instead of going through the “proper channels” and saying his order was sloppy and unenforceable and blah fucking blah.
But I’m just amazed at the rural folks who have traditionally fought against having more oversight of exotic animals. As you mention – the Humane Society conspiracy theory is strong out in the rural parts of the state, but you’d STILL think that no matter where you live in the state it would be at least nice to know that your neighbor has a fucking Bengal tiger on his property (not to mention 18 of them) and that there’s some kind of oversight to show that he’s not an idiot when it comes to handling them so they won’t come over and eat your horses or worse your kids, wouldn’t you? Hell I’d want to know if my neighbor had a pet cougar let alone a freaking tiger!
And yeah – there was a cougar mauling back when I lived in the northeastern part of the state in the 90s. This shit has been going on for as long as I’ve lived in Ohio.
cathyx
@harlana: That’s exactly my bone of contention here in Portland where the sea lions are coming into the rivers to hunt for salmon. The sport fishermen want to eliminate them because they are eating and scaring away the salmon that they want to catch. But the sea lions are only coming into the rivers because the ocean has been overfished commercially and they can’t get them there, so they come into the rivers for them.
Humans ruin the natural balance and habitats for these wild animals, and then we get angry when the wild animals encroach on “our” environment.
wilfred
American Grand Guignol in the last, horrible days of capitalism.
Worthy of poetry. G-d help the poor things in their suffering.
kay
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
It’s a graphic lesson in how radical they are. They won’t even regulate tigers, because it’s a slippery slope!
Utter insanity. Crazy fealty to The Dogma.
ericblair
@NonyNony:
Sure, if you’re not a paranoid nut (Bengal tigers today, my Precious Bodily Fluids tomorrow!) and didn’t have the emotional maturity of a three-year-old (but I WANT IT! NOW! YOU BIG MEANIE!).
Next up: Hoocoodanode. Besides everybody with two functioning brain cells, that is.
Nicole
The other thing Hanna brought up in his interview is, even had there been some way to capture the animals (there wasn’t; as numerous other posters have said), where were they all going to go? Large predators need a lot of space, and zoos that have them are already at capacity. This guy was so wrong and so irresponsible in so many ways.
The other thing I’d heard mentioned by LOD was that the lone remaining monkey had Herpes B. Which is common in primates, and fatal to humans. I read today that they think the monkey was killed by one of the predators. I hope that’s true.
kay
@NonyNony:
It’s actually a huge deal for agribusiness. The (general) conservative trope here is “right to farm”. What it means is totally deregulating agribusiness, in a nutshell.
You’ll recall they passed a state issue taking regulation of agribusiness from the elected legislature and to an ag-friendly appointed board?
It’s same old, same old. Complete capture by business interests, to the detriment of the broader public.
catclub
@Bill H.: I am going to second guess the sheriff. In an interview he said that there had been repeated calls to go to the guy’s farm and deal with problems, and that included various levels of escapes.
Adn many people had already expressed the opinion that something bad was going to happen with all those animals.
So why didn’t the sheriff think: “Maybe we should be prepared if something bad happens here. I wonder where you can get animal tranquilizer?”
Nicole
@catclub:
Because that won’t change the fact that tranquilizers take 20-30 minutes to take effect (assuming you even hit the animal in the right place on the first shot) and a large predator can do a heck of a lot of damage in 20 to 30 minutes, especially if it’s angry as fuck about just having been shot by a tiny bi-pedal.
dr.hypercube
@NonyNony: Got it – thanks. My basic reaction is unchanged though – there are 250 captive Bengal Tigers in the studbook – only 1 outside India (Wikipedia). This asshole’s tigers were Bengal in the sense of being orange and not super hairy (i.e. little admixture of Amur blood). Hanna knows better – there is almost chance of these animals ever having an effect on wild populations. If they do, it’s because tigers are extinct in the wild and we’re desperate to re-introduce anything regardless of genetics.
No argument from me on whether 18 (or 1) tigers are appropriate for John Q. Nutcase. (Ans. – no)
dr.hypercube
Too late to edit – should read “there is almost NO chance”.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@catclub: The sheriff didn’t think that because it’s not that simple. It’s in fact dangerous, to his staff as well as to the general public to try that approach. As much as I hate the idea of dead animals, it couldn’t have safely been handled any other way.
harlana
@Joel: bunnies, deer? hawks preying on my mom’s dog in the middle of the city?
harlana
@Scott: yep, that’s what i’ve started doing to prevent people from jumping all over me like you just did, before you read my disclaimer. i appreciate your acknowleding that.
i just don’t feel like writing mini-novels on here just to be understood as and considered a reasonable human being, so disclaimers will be issued henceforth, as appropriate
YEP, pie in the sky, that’s me. Cuz I ain’t as smart as the rest of yus, and that’s a fact.
Nicole
@dr.hypercube: I saw the interview, and all I think Hanna was actually trying to say something about overcrowding captive animals- 1800 left in the wild, and this guy had the equivalent of 1 percent of that number jammed into an area far too small for them. Ties in to what he also said about no zoos in the area having room for these animals.
Nicole
Oh, and props for the Pretenders reference, mistermix. I love that song.
catclub
@Nicole: @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I will repeat: Why did not the sheriff ever say ( and act on)
“Maybe we should be prepared if something bad happens here.”
Since HE knew that something bad was going to happen. He said so in his interviews.
kay
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
There it is. This is part of a long-running battle between agribusiness/animal production and…. any regulation, at all.
Honestly, I just watched a clip of Kasich and he’s completely confused.
He has no idea what’s been going on in this battle for years or what is going on, or what this is actually about :)
I don’t think they’re going to permit him to regulate anything, ever.
srv
When I had just started college, a classmate took me to some nut’s trailer in south Austin. Kids playing outside. Guy had a cage where the bedroom normally was, with a one or two year old tiger in it.
Crazy.
Humanities Grad
@catclub:
As hip hop artist notes above, that wouldn’t have worked. For a lot of reasons.
First, remember that you’re dealing with a relatively small community, in a state where government budgets at all levels have been shrinking dramatically for years. It’s not like the Zanesville PD or the county Sheriff’s Office has thousands of dollars in discretionary funds just laying around the office. I’m guessing they’ve been focused on scaring up enough funds that they don’t have to start laying people off.
Moreover, from my understanding, their hands were pretty much tied on this one. Yeah, they’d been out to this idiot’s property, but so long as he wasn’t violating any laws (and, amazingly enough, it appears he wasn’t), there’s not a lot they could’ve done. Moreover, dealing with a single escaped animal may be a foreseeable event, but dealing with a mass escape/release situation would probably be judged too remote a possibility to be taken seriously.
dr.hypercube
@Nicole: Thanks – that makes a ton more sense.
Bill H.
@catclub:
Well, he probably should have been prepared in case the Canadian Army invaded, too. Or in case an asteroid crashed into the middle of downtown. He “knew that something bad was going to happen,” but in his darkest nightmare he never envisioned this. Nor would any sane person envision this.
I get it, you are angry, and you want to blame somebody, somebody who is alive and who can feel your anger. It’s a natural feeling, and it is misguided. Do not give in to it. The Sheriff is not the bad guy here. The bad guy is the guy who owned these animals and who turned them loose. He is dead and is rotting in hell where he belongs. Save your anger for him.
greylocks
@Napoleon:
I wouldn’t expect deputies to become instant wildlife experts and make reliable judgments about which animals to shoot right away and which ones to maybe just keep an eye on until the zoo vet with the tranq gun shows up. The sheriff made the right call.
Tigers in particular should not be fucked around with. They’ll attack because they can.
lawguy
@NonyNony: Whatever bad things you want to say about the guy are on the whole probably correct. However, there is no evidence that these animals were starved.
Brad
The problem is far from solved by just keeping enough tranqs on hand for all the animals. As previously mentioned, there is a very narrow dosage window between making the animal angry and killing it that you have to achieve. And that dosage is highly dependent upon the animal’s weight (we’re talking a range of very small macaques to 1 ton male grizzlies here). Capturing a single wild animal would usually take a skilled team of several people to first subdue the animal, track it to where it lays down and administer, if necessary, an appropriate dose of more tranquilizer to remove any further danger. Then another group of people (likely quite large for an enormous grizzly) to transport the animal while it’s being constantly monitored by the veterinary team.
No one would even think of attempting this unless the animal was isolated from other animals and dangers. And even if they did, where are they going to get the dozens of qualified teams required here?
lawguy
@Scott: Would it have been necessary to tranqualize ALL the animals or just the number that could have been safely done before shooting the others.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@lawguy: The problem, is that it really couldn’t be safely done. To tranquilize any of the animals you need to
1) have the proper medication
2) correctly estimate the weight of the animal you want to sedate
3) have the capability of accurately shooting a large, fast moving animal in the precise location appropriate for the drug to work
4) have an effective plan for coping with an annoyed wild (unrestrained) animal for the 5-30 minutes before the drug takes effect (assuming 1-3 happened correctly)
5) have the equipment and trained personnel to transport the animal and safely handle a pissed off large wild animal when it wakes up.
All of which runs the risk of injury to the citizens of the county as well as to the LEOs involved. That’s why they all had to be shot. None of them could have been safely tranquilized. It’s awful, but that’s the reality.
Paul in KY
The dead owner was an evil POS. he knew they would have to kill those animals. What a slimeball.
Paul in KY
The dead owner was an evil POS. he knew they would have to kill those animals. What a slimeball.
Paul in KY
What a sick fuck that guy was. He knew they would have to kill those beautiful animals.
Makes me cry.
Edit: Sorry about multiple post, fucking WordPress.
Plethded
@catclub: He was probably thinking about what would happen when a tiger or lion gets out into the community. Not dozens at once. The number of animals involved is a significant part of the difficulty in resolving the situation without killing animals.
nancydarling
I live about 25 miles from a big cat rescue refuge. The stories of the animals there and the conditions they were found in would break your heart. They are working very hard to build large habitats for all the animals in their care and the last time I was there, they had built enough for about half of them. The cages remaining are not small and all the animals are well cared for. These people are doing good work. I know everyone is tapped out from giving, but if you can spare a few, this is a good place to send it.
http://www.turpentinecreek.org/
Mnemosyne
@Paul in KY:
It almost has the air of a murder/suicide — he knew perfectly well that the cops would be forced to kill the animals if they were loose and the asshole let them out on purpose.
Big cats are gorgeous, yes, but they are extremely dangerous. There was a sad case here in California a few years ago where a licensed training facility had to put a tiger down because it killed one of the trainers. The head of the facility was sick about it because he had warned that trainer that he wasn’t interacting safely with the tiger, but once a tiger figures out it can kill humans, it will keep doing it. ‘Cause it’s fun to be a giant predator with big teeth and claws.
We like to pretend to ourselves that we’re at the top of the food chain, but we jumped to the head of the line by using tools. If you don’t have access to those tools and a big cat decides you look tasty, you’re totally fucked.
ETA: Also, I would think poorly of the cops if the animals had still been caged and they had shot them, but when you have a 500-pound tiger roaming free in someone’s backyard, you don’t have a lot of choices. Especially if it’s one of 15 tigers roaming free and night is falling.
Persia
@NonyNony: Especially since so many rural farmer-types value preservation of their livestock over all else, including common sense half the time.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: I think he was either too chicken-shit to put them down himself or he was hoping they would kill a neighbor/police officer.
Either way, a horrible thing to do. Understand the law couldn’t have a bunch of them running around the county.
I love cats, but a friend said (and I agree) that once a cat gets around 40 lbs (and not grossly obese), you stop owning the cat & the cat starts owning you.
evinfuilt
I don’t know who was more vile. The brain-damaged owner who caused this. Or the brain-damaged governor who allowed laws to lapse that allowed this, and then feigns ignorance (then again, his brain damage could be so severe he doesn’t even know he caused this.)
Between the Ohio incident and the Shark killing down south it gets harder and harder to defend humans as innately kind.
rb
@Bill H.: He is dead and is rotting in hell where he belongs.
Thankfully there is no hell other than the hell we can make of our lives. This guy clearly knew something about that.
That said, in killing himself he shows that he was tormented, and I feel pity for him. It is awful to think of these animals in torment. So too their ‘owner.’
To the rest of your comment: hear hear.
nancydarling
@evinfuilt: I have pictures of my kids diving with hammerheads in the Galapagos. The sharks are scared of the divers and swim away as fast as they can. I hope they don’t read about this as they would be heart broken.
I posted this @85 but it is worth posting again. This place (25 miles from me) is doing good work rescuing big cats and other large wild animals.
http://www.turpentinecreek.org/
Sarah in Brooklyn
@nancydarling: I just ordered a couple of calendars from them. They look like a terrific place.
rb
@evinfuilt: Between the Ohio incident and the Shark killing down south it gets harder and harder to defend humans as innately kind.
I don’t think we’re innately anything (or to put it more precisely: YOU might be innately something, and I might be innately something, but “we” probably aren’t).
nancydarling
@Sarah in Brooklyn: Bless you Sarah!
Paul in KY
@nancydarling: I am going to send them a donation (since ABL doesn’t seem to want my money).
Probably a better cause anyway.
lou
Did anyone catch the Rachel Maddow show last night. She went into this before interviewing Jack Hanna, who then defended Kasich. Maddow didn’t probe Hanna about that, but I wondered about that context. Does anyone know?
What makes what that jerk do even worse is apparently he deliberately damaged the wires that locked the cage gates. So if the police successfully tranked the wild animals, they couldn’t use the animals’ cages to secure them. He definitely put thought into this before freeing them. He wanted to do damage to his neighbors and the police.
lou
Off topic: I have to put in a good word for the town of Zanesville. Nearly 30 years ago, some college friends piled into a car and drove from Columbia, Mo., to Washington, DC to attend a conference and hang out with our professional idols. On the way back, at something like 11 p.m., the beat-up car broke down in Zanesville. The town mechanics came and opened up shop on Sunday to look at the car and see if it could be repaired quickly. It couldn’t. but in the meantime, the folks in Zanesville made some college kids feel welcome.
lawguy
@lou: I didn’t see that Hanna defended Kasich? Wow.
debbie
@lou:
Not true. Hanna’s been all over the Columbus air waves, defending the shootings. He’s even gotten death threats for supporting the necessity of the shootings.
Hanna has never supported Kasich’s letting the law expire.