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Views and News
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States struggle to rein in exotic wildlife
Most of us have dealt with a neighbor's dog or cat paying an uninvited visit to our yard. But imagine that instead of a 40-pound dog or a 5-pound cat, your neighbor's wandering "pet" is a 400-pound Burmese tiger, or perhaps a 3-foot long Caiman alligator, such as those that residents of a Harlem housing project discovered living next door to them last October. As the number of such wild pets increases in the United States, so has the number of fatal or near-fatal incidents involving these animals, leading lawmakers in 21 states to ban or severely limit exotic pet ownership.
It is believed private individuals in the U.S. possess as many as 20,000 large cats, thousands of apes and other primates and millions of reptiles and birds. Other wild animals commonly held as pets include wolves, bears and large venomous snakes. And although nobody can give an exact number, most experts estimate that private owners hold between 5,000 and 10,000 tigers in the U.S., a figure that exceeds the number of tigers believed to be living wild in Asia.
While most of these animals are undoubtedly treated well, there have been numerous cases in recent years of horrific abuse of wild pets, including severe beatings, woefully inadequate nutrition and even starvation. Many are also painfully declawed or defanged in an effort to make them safer to handle. One particularly graphic case occurred last year in CALIFORNIA, where a private sanctuary was found to have 90 dead adult tigers and another 58 dead tiger cubs stored in a freezer. Thirty-nine tigers that survived had to be placed into another sanctuary. Although this was an extreme case, experts estimate that 90 percent of all wild animals die in captivity within two years.
What is known for sure is that since April of 2003, at least four people in the U.S. have been killed and numerous others injured just by big cats, perhaps none more well publicized than the attack suffered by entertainer Roy Horn during the Siegfried and Roy act at the Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Among the 2003 fatalities was a 10-year-old NORTH CAROLINA boy who was mauled to death by his aunt's 400-pound tiger; others included a 3-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl in separate attacks in TEXAS. There have also been numerous other, non-fatal incidents involving both big cats and other wild animal pets in OHIO, OKLAHOMA, MISSOURI, WASHINGTON, FLORIDA and NEW YORK.
Kim Haddad, a veterinarian and spokeswoman for the Captive Wild Animal Protection Coalition (CWAPC) in California, a consortium of zoo professionals, sanctuary operators and animal rights groups, says banning private exotic pet ownership is the only realistic way to prevent these kinds of tragic events from happening.
"Tigers, bears and monkeys have very specific and unique needs that cannot be met by the average person," Haddad says. "These are unpredictable wild animals and they present a danger not only to the people who own them, but also others in the community. The owner may be willing to take that risk, but it is rarely that person who is attacked. It is usually a relative, most often a child, or some other person who works with them".
Haddad says there are public health concerns as well. Many wild animals, particularly primates, carry zoonotic diseases that do not affect them negatively, but which can be lethal to human handlers. It is estimated that between 80 and 90 percent of all macaque monkeys, one of the most popular primates among exotic pet owners, carry either the Herpes B or Simian B virus, which can be fatal to humans.
CWAPC says that 90 percent of reptiles like iguanas, lizards and turtles carry and shed salmonella in their feces, most with no outward signs of the disease. The Centers for Disease Control note that more than 90,000 human salmonella cases every year are a direct result of exposure to reptiles.
Statistics like these have inspired lawmakers across the nation to take legislative action. This year MINNESOTA became the latest state to limit exotic pet ownership, passing Senate File 1530 in May. That bill, authored by Sen. Don Betzold (D) and signed into law by Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R), prohibits private ownership of virtually all big cats - lions, servals, ocelots, tigers, cougars, leopards, jaguars and cheetahs - as well as bears and non-human primates. NEW YORK could soon follow suit, as Senate Bill 7616 has made it through the Legislature and is currently under review by Gov. George Pataki (R). If so, the Empire State would ban ownership of all the animals named in the Minnesota bill while also adding venomous reptiles and crocodiles to their prohibited list. ILLINOIS Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) also just signed SB 3111, which requires organizers of exotic animal swap meets to keep records of transactions to make it easier for health officials to trace diseased or illegal animals. The WASHINGTON House passed the House Bill 1151 this Spring, which would have barred private possession of big cats, primates, bears and wolves, but it failed to get a vote in the full Senate after clearing the rules committee. Overall 21 states ban or limit exotic pets, 14 states require a permit or license and 15 have no restrictions.
There are also federal laws that seek to at least partially manage exotic animal ownership. The Lacey Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Public Health Service Act all regulate traffic of exotic animals into the U.S. or between states, and the Captive Wildlife Safety Act bars the interstate commerce of most big cats. Many local municipalities also have their own laws addressing exotic pet ownership. Most of these laws, however, do not regulate animals bred in the United States. Even with federal laws in place, enforcement remains difficult.
"Enforcement is always an issue of having an adequate number of officers," says Sandra Clevey of the U.S. Dep't of Fish and Wildlife. "There are only 263 (federal) officers to cover the entire country. That's to enforce all animal laws, the ESA, everything. That's pretty tough."
But not everyone thinks more laws are the answer to exotic pet problems. Jeanne Hall, president of the Phoenix Exotic Wildlife Association in Chehalis, Washington, a non-profit group that advocates for education and self-regulation among exotic pet owners, says laws that ban exotic pets are a violation of the constitutional rights of animal owners.
"This is an issue of property rights," Hall says. "There is a constitutional right for citizens of this country to own property."
Nicole Paquette, Director of Legal and Government Affairs for the Animal Protection Institute in Sacramento, which helped to write Washington's HB 1151, agrees that some states have been hesitant to ban exotic pets because they view animals as personal property. But Paquette says such an interpretation is inherently flawed.
"I've read the constitution several times," Paquette says, "And I've never seen where it says anyone has the right to own a lion or a primate."
Hall says the real answer to exotic pet incidents is to address the specific problem in each attack rather than throwing down a blanket of legislation that affects every pet owner, and to require more education for owners before they are allowed to obtain an exotic pet.
"Take the man in Harlem," she says. "That guy was illegal, illegal, illegal. You could have passed a billion laws and that particular situation would not have been changed. Using that occurrence to pass, say, a law banning bunnies from South Africa is absurd."
"Exotic pets are a lot like guns," Hall adds. "Guns don't kill people; people kill people."
Hall says the majority of escapes and incidents also do not come from illegal ownership, but from legal sites approved and licensed by the U.S. Dep't. of Agriculture. Such was the case in July of this year when a 600-pound Siberian tiger escaped from its owner in Florida. The tiger was eventually destroyed by authorities after it lunged at an officer who had cornered it. It was the third incident for the tiger's owner, who has a USDA permit for six large cats.
But Hall also concedes it is impossible to truly tame a wild animal. "By definition and biology, your regular house cat is not tame either," Hall says.
Michael Markarian, president of the national campaign office of The Fund for Animals in MARYLAND, which helped to place the 39 abused California tigers, acknowledges that while the ration of attacks to the overall exotic animals in captivity is small, the fact that they are inherently wild makes owning such pets dangerous.
"These animals are all time bombs just waiting to explode," says Markarian. "You never know if your 8-year-old daughter or 6-year-old grandson is going to be the one statistic out of 10,000."
Markarian says that an even bigger problem is the toll being in captivity - even if the owner gives the best care available - takes on the animal. "The more you take the wild out of wildlife, the more inhumane it is to the animal," he says.
-by Rich Ehisen
For more information on this topic, please visit the following Web sites:
Captive Wild Animal Protection Coalition - http://www.cwapc.org
The Fund for Animals - http://www.fund.org
The Animal Protection Institute - http://www.api4animals.org
Phoenix Exotic Wildlife Association - http://www.phoenixexotics.org
The National Alternative Pet Association - http://www.altpet.net