Exotic animals doomed to bad laws

By Marshall Jones,  May 23, 2007

For all the chest beating and pulpit pounding about exotic animal bans, dare I say there’s a darn good reason why we don’t have laws on the subject.

Just how would you defend such a thing?

It can’t be based on public safety. Half the reason this is so shocking is because we almost never hear about someone getting hurt or killed.

It’s one of the peculiarities of this discussion. The public is all at arms because someone was killed in a strange incident with a “domesticated tiger,” whatever that is. But the woman who died was, by all accounts, in love with the animals. According to one newspaper she was saying good night to them at the time it swiped at her.

So let’s not build any laws for Tania Dumstrey-Soos—she wouldn’t have wanted one.

I hear people say you shouldn’t be able to own a dangerous predator. But drawing lines is a problem because of course dogs are predators. And they are all potentially dangerous. No one's going to round up little Roughy-puffy my shitzu-puggy.   

You’d have to be a little more broad as well. Horses are not predators but they can be dangerous. Far more people are hurt and killed by horses than by exotic animals. They don’t attack, sure, but just like a tiger, they just do what they do... rear, buck, kick, fall.

So why have a province-wide law banning ownership of foreign cats, snakes and crocodiles? Is it because these big creatures are kept in cages? Is it because we impose some greater purpose or value on a tiger over, say, minks in fur farms or factory farmed pigs?

And are zoos really that much better?

The BCSPCA has its share of ink on the subject but it was never concerned for public safety. It was concerned about the condition of the animals.

I don’t doubt their intentions, but let's be honest. Their skimpy investigations amount to peering over fences to see if animals have food and water.

When’s the last time they stuck their noses in a PMU (Pregnant Mare Urine) barn to see how horses like being stuck with a catheter and forced to stand in one spot day after day. Where’s all the concern about intensive poultry farms and crowded slaughter yards.

These are animals we eat. Who came up with this bizarre hierarchy of animal values, Walt Disney?

Yeah, probably.

Just because the public and political appetite is whet for bad laws doesn’t make for good public policy.

Hey, I said there’s a reason we can’t make this legislation. I didn’t say it was a good reason.

Truth is we already have laws in place for such problems and it has nothing to do with various opinions and emotions of which animals are more worthy.

If, for example, someone insists on raising pit bulls or angry

ferrets or black widow spiders then they are presumed to know the danger. And if that someone fails to contain them, fails to take proper safety precautions, fails to ensure that new owners and care-takers are aware of the danger... and someone is hurt or killed... then I believe we call that negligence.

Reprinted with Permission © Copyright 2007 100 Mile House Free Press

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