Thursday, October 20, 2011

Expired Ohio rule regulated exotic animals

Oct. 20, 2011, Zanesville Times Recorder

By Russ Zimmer and Jessica Alaimo
CentralOhio.com

If you own a dog in Ohio, you have to license it every year. However, your neighbor can own 18 tigers and he doesn’t have to tell a soul.

A regulatory blind spot in Ohio explains how a private individual could have grizzly bears, African lions and Bengal tigers at their home without any state supervision — let alone someone like Terry Thompson, a man with a history of animal-related misdemeanors and fresh from a year in federal prison for illegally possessing a machine gun.

In his final days as governor, Ted Strickland, as part of a deal that resulted in the Ohio Livestock Standards Board, issued an executive order prohibiting the ownership or trading of certain species, deemed “dangerous wild animals.”

The language of the order would have made Thompson’s animal sanctuary illegal because of his conviction for cruelty to animals.

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