Hearing delayed for Ohio exotic animal quarantine

ANN SANNER

Asso­ci­ated Press

REYNOLDSBURG — An admin­is­tra­tive hear­ing has been delayed for a week over Ohio’s quar­an­tine order for five ani­mals kept at a zoo since their owner released dozens of wild crea­tures from his farm before he com­mit­ted sui­cide in October.

A state-appointed lawyer was set to hear argu­ments Mon­day about whether the state had the author­ity to quar­an­tine the sur­viv­ing ani­mals. After more than an hour-and-a-half delay to the start of the morn­ing hear­ing, attor­neys announced tes­ti­mony would start on April 30.

A spokes­woman for Ohio’s agri­cul­ture depart­ment said the hear­ing was pushed back at the request of Mar­ian Thomp­son, the sui­ci­dal owner’s widow, who had demanded the appeal hear­ing. An attor­ney for the widow declined to comment.

The Colum­bus zoo has been car­ing for three leop­ards, two pri­mates and a bear under state-issued quar­an­tine orders. One leop­ard was euth­a­nized after being struck by a door low­er­ing between two enclosures.

The ani­mals are those that sur­vived the release by owner Terry Thomp­son, who lived just out­side Zanesville in east­ern Ohio. Author­i­ties were forced to kill 48 of 56 oth­ers, includ­ing Ben­gal tigers, lions and bears, as they moved into the community.

Mar­ian Thomp­son appeared at Monday’s hear­ing, but declined to speak to reporters. She had sought to reclaim the sur­viv­ing ani­mals in late Octo­ber, but the Ohio Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture ordered that they be kept in quar­an­tine. Ohio law allows the state vet­eri­nar­ian to quar­an­tine ani­mals while inves­ti­gat­ing reports of poten­tially dan­ger­ous diseases.

Offi­cials said they were con­cerned about reports that the ani­mals lived in unsan­i­tary con­di­tions where they could be exposed to dis­ease. The order pre­vents the zoo from releas­ing the ani­mals until it’s clear they’re free of dan­ger­ous diseases.

Andrew Cooke, the state-appointed attor­ney over­see­ing the appeal hear­ing, also declined to offer fur­ther details for the hearing’s delay.

As hear­ing offi­cer, he has between 30 and 45 days to ren­der a report after the pro­ceed­ings about the quar­an­tine order. Any final deci­sion would be made by the state’s agri­cul­ture direc­tor, and Mar­ian Thomp­son could also appeal that decision.

The sur­viv­ing ani­mals were med­ically tested in March, but state offi­cials have yet to receive the results.

Offi­cials ini­tially were wor­ried about whether the ani­mals were strong enough to sur­vive being anes­thetized for test­ing, but the state vet­eri­nar­ian deter­mined last month that they were.

The wildlife under­went phys­i­cal exams, X-rays and blood test­ing. Mar­ian Thompson’s vet­eri­nar­ian also sent a vet­eri­nary tech­ni­cian to be present dur­ing the test­ing and to col­lect the split sam­ples from the animals.

Posted by AP News on Apr 23 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.