Exotic animals on the loose in Ohio

Siegfried is upping Roy's meds.

 

I read somewhere earlier today that the reason officials didn't tranq them all is because they were afraid they'd tranquilize the animal, it would wander off under cover of darkness before it passed out, then wake up later and resume terrorizing the area before they found it.

Seems iffy to me, but whatever, I wasn't there. I know it was dark, so if the animal wandered off after being tranquilized it could be hard to follow, but do the local police not have any kind of night-vision?

 

I hate that they had to kill the animals as well but there's a bit more to it than just saying "they should have tranq'd them."

Not only do they have to tranq them but they then have to load them into a vehicle of some kind and transport them somewhere. This isn't The Hangover. They can't just load them in the back of squad car then lock them in somebody's bathroom until they figure out what to do with them.

They had to have a transportation plan and a zoo/shelter or multiple zoos/shelters that could take all the animals on short notice.

The easy way to prevent this is not to let the guy have that many animals on his property to begin with.

 

Fair enough on your last sentence, and undoubtedly the licensing rules will change in just about all 50 states. But isn't that just more government intrusion on people's rights?

 

That's probably why earlier this year our governor (rated as the worst in the country) struck down a provision which did just that -- banned exotic animal ownership.

 

It's a tough question. What about the individual rights of neighbors who don't want to be eaten by a tiger?

I don't like the idea of an outright ban. As I mentioned, I think limiting the number of animals and requiring fairly stringent safety rules are necessary.

Of course, if the guy is nuts and wants to free the animals before he offs himself none of that is going to do any good.

 

If states paid as much attention to lion and tiger ownership regulations as they did family planning regulations we'd have a better country.

 

What pisses me off are all of these illegal animals not paying taxes and draining the health care system.

 

Plus they probably didn't have enough tranq guns in the whole state for that scenario.

 

I saw this thread title and wondered who in Ohio was hosting an unannounced SportsJournalists.com gathering.

 

If I don't get to have my own whore house, crack house or meth lab, this guy doesn't get to own his own zoo. Period.