Posted on 10/19/2011 5:19:33 PM PDT by mdittmar
Zanesville, Ohio, sheriff's deputies armed with assault rifles opened fire on dozens of "mature, very big, aggressive" lions, tigers, cheetahs, wolves, and bears who had escaped from a private menagerie in Ohio after the farm's owner, Terry Thompson, was found dead and the animals' cage doors were left open and fences unsecured. Chimpanzees and orangutans were found locked in cages inside the house. At least 30 animals have been killed, and several more remain at large.
Thompson had a long history of brushes with the law and had just completed a one-year sentence on two federal counts of possessing illegal firearms. In November 2005, Thompson was convicted of, among other things, cruelty to animals and was subsequently sentenced to six months of house arrest and fined $2,870. PETA had filed complaints with the U.S. Department of Agriculture regarding Thompson's illegal activities, including exhibiting animals without a license and declawing tiger cubs in violation of the Animal Welfare Act.
Ohio has no regulations governing the ownership of exotic and dangerous animals. Exotic animals all over the state languish without adequate food, water, and veterinary care. They eat rotten scraps, drink algae-laden water, and spend their days pacing on feces- and urine-encrusted dirt. Just last April, Ohio Gov. John Kasich refused to extend an emergency ban on exotic animals in the state, which was put in place by his predecessor. PETA has campaigned for an outright ban for many years.
Please join PETA in asking the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to exercise its authority to declare emergency regulations to prohibit the keeping of exotic animals and also seize the animals over whom the agency has jurisdiction and see that they are placed in reputable sanctuaries.
Animals dead in Ohio.
Cue Neil Young.
Keeping those kind of animals in captivity is not natural. It’s wrong.
Sad story all around.
Knew this was coming. these people are focused on this while thousands of babies are aborted every year.
Leave it to the Fruits and Nuts at PETA to come up with a title like that.
He didn’t supply enough for them to eat, if you get my drift.
I wonder if he opened all of the cages as a form of suicide-my-menagerie, or if some trespassing eco-vandal did?
Not so much wrong as it is hard to do properly and few private citizens have the means to do so.
“I wonder if he opened all the cages as a form of suicide my menagerie”.
I was wondering if he didn’t open the cages as a “to heck with you” to the citizens around him. I mean if he really cared about his animals, wouldn’t he call 911, tell them he was about to commit suicide, and then kill himself. It would have been a whole lot easier for the officials to rescue these animals if they were contained. They could have contacted rescue groups etc.. instead of killing them (which I feel was necessary for public safety)/
There is very little left that is purely natural in life, if you consider natural to have no directed input.
reserve owner set them free before shooting himself
He had recently been in jail
Didn't these geniuses ever hear of tranquilizer guns?.
If a private citizen killed a bunch of these critters he would probably be in jail.
F PETA in spades! There has never been a more self serving bunch of a$$holes than the afore mentioned other than the Democratic party and all who support it!
Sounds like he was trying to make a statement. He was jailed for not having the proper federal permits to possess automatic weapons. He apparently needed the weapons to put down any animals that escaped. So after serving time in jail for not renewing the permit, he said, screw you to the authorities. That is my guess. Kinda like that guy who flew his plane into the IRS building. Shame about the animals, but high end predators are just killing machines in the wild.
Sounds like he turned them loose to punish the community.
If the cage doors were left open by the guy to let them go, then they did not excape. They were allowed to go freely.
yes! I agree with you.
He is/was just a dirtbag...if he cared about the animals at all he could have called 911 and told them the situation.
Instead he left them to wreak havoc on the community.
If a private citizen killed a bunch of these critters he would probably be in jail.
But first it would be the mother of all BBQs.
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