Ohio Exotic Animal Breakout

Has anybody else been watching this today? The owner of a wildlife refuge for big cats and other predators opened all the cages and then killed himself. I think it was 39 animals escaped the grounds including adult tigers, lions, wolves, leopards, mountain lions, grizzly and black bears, and at least one monkey. The order was given to distribute assault rifles among responding officers and kill most if not all of these incredible animals.

I understand the decision as the location was near the suburbs but I still can't help feeling very sad for all of these top tier animals that were essentially hunted down and killed with hails of bullets (not even a quick and clean kill shot like a deer hunter would use). I think they could have tried a little harder with using tranquilizer guns though, judging from the words and tone of his press conference, the sheriff who gave the order does not like animals and only briefly considered it after Columbus zoo officials came onto the scene the following morning.

Ohio needs to get their act together in many categories. It is a shame.

I lived in Toledo, Oh for 5 years. Does anyone know where the best place in Ohio is? The absolute middle! Because either which way you go, you are leaving!

That is so sad. I haven't seen/heard/read about this today but now I will spend the rest of the day doing so. That is absolutely insane to just kill the animals... I mean I agree... tranquilizers or something... I'd like to take a few shots at the Sheriff

"I shot the sheriff... "

And Jack Hanna too...

While I don't agree with how the animals are being dealt with I am far more pissed at the guy that released them before killing himself. It's stupid people like this that all of us responsible exotic animal owners get grouped together with.

I agree with you on that as well. The least he could have done was leave them locked up and call someone else like the zoo or whatever...

but at the same time I watched a video and they were like "oh we tried tranquilizing a tiger and it got disturbed" or angry or something of that nature... WELL NO DUH DUMMY... any animal I have ever seen on TV be tranquilized doesnt like it... but instead of giving it a chance to calm down and the medicine to kick in, no lets just kill it...

I understand wanting to protect the people, but we don't freak out and tell everyone to stay inside and off the roads when a bear is sited.... I know the animals can be aggressive.. but I think other options should have been thought about... I dunno it is a touchy subject and it really upsets me they were just shooting the animals... *sigh*

I saw that this morning, I know they had to get it under control fast, but to just shoot on sight kind of torques me. Its the same thing people do to snakes. Kill first think about it after.

On the way home from work this evening, I was listening to the radio. They were talking to the Governor of Ohio and he said they were going to move quickly to enact legislation on exotics. Ohio is the most lenient state when it comes to exotics. So, this could mean a ban on ASF's, and snakes. BTW, they mentioned three snake incidents as one reason for the legislation.

Unbelievable... people are so uneducated on things and it Pees me off. I mean I can understand wanting to make it so that only the proper people can possess things like tigers and bears... but they really need to educate themselves on other stuff... this whole situation sucks in Ohio... I saw this morning they said they had accounted for all of the animals, most were shot and only a few werent killed.