Lawyer: Cages OK at site of Ohio exotics release

In this photo from April 23, Mar­ian Thomp­son, widow of the late Terry Thomp­son, fol­lows her attor­ney Bob McClel­land into a hear­ing at the Ohio Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture in Reynolds­burg. (For the Asso­ci­ated Press | Chris Crook)

ANN SANNER

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLUMBUS — An attor­ney for a sui­ci­dal ani­mal owner’s widow who is seek­ing the return of exotic ani­mals that sur­vived an Octo­ber release said she has ade­quate cages for them at her east­ern Ohio farm, accord­ing to a let­ter obtained by The Asso­ci­ated Press.

Three leop­ards, two pri­mates and a bear sur­vived the release of dozens of wild crea­tures in Zanesville. They have been under a state-issued quar­an­tine at the Colum­bus zoo. One leop­ard was euth­a­nized after it was struck by a door at the zoo.

Attor­ney Robert McClel­land wrote to Ohio offi­cials last week on behalf of his client, Mar­ian Thompson.

The state’s agri­cul­ture direc­tor told him ear­lier this month that the Ohio Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture required proof of the arrange­ments Thomp­son has made for the ani­mals’ con­fine­ment and care. The depart­ment has sched­uled an admin­is­tra­tive hear­ing for Mon­day on Thompson’s request.

Thompson’s hus­band, Terry Thomp­son, freed bears, lions, endan­gered Ben­gal tigers and other ani­mals on Oct. 18 before killing him­self. Author­i­ties were forced to shoot 48 of the crea­tures as they moved into the community.

McClel­land told an attor­ney for the agri­cul­ture depart­ment in a let­ter dated April 18 that the ani­mals now held by the zoo were not harmed in the Octo­ber release because they were in proper cages.

“A lim­ited num­ber of cages were harmed dur­ing the inci­dent and there are plenty of alter­na­tive cages to safely secure the few remain­ing ani­mals,” McClel­land wrote.

The AP obtained McClelland’s let­ter and the April 4 let­ter from the state’s agri­cul­ture direc­tor on Fri­day through a pub­lic records request.

McClel­land asked the state for the ani­mals to be returned to Thomp­son upon the return of neg­a­tive test results.

Med­ical results released this week showed all five ani­mals are free of the dan­ger­ously con­ta­gious or infec­tious dis­eases for which they were tested. But the depart­ment said the ani­mals would remain under quar­an­tine at the zoo for con­tin­ued obser­va­tion for signs of rabies, which the agency said could only be con­firmed after an ani­mal is dead.

“No deter­mi­na­tions regard­ing the sta­tus of the quar­an­tine will be made before the obser­va­tion period has con­cluded,” the agency said at the time.

Erica Pitch­ford, a spokes­woman for the agri­cul­ture depart­ment, says the stan­dard obser­va­tion period for the ani­mals is six months, which ended Fri­day. She said Fri­day she did not antic­i­pate changes to the sta­tus of the quar­an­tine order before the Mon­day admin­is­tra­tive hearing.

Thomp­son asked for the hear­ing to appeal the quar­an­tine order. She has ques­tioned whether the state had the author­ity to quar­an­tine the ani­mals on the sus­pi­cion of poten­tial dan­ger­ous infec­tious diseases.

“Mar­ian Thomp­son never wanted the inci­dent of Octo­ber 18th to hap­pen,” McClel­land wrote. “In the wake of the events, she never wanted to part ways with her animals.”

Offi­cials said at the time of the quar­an­tine order that 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.

Tom Stalf, the Colum­bus zoo’s chief oper­at­ing offi­cer, said in a sworn state­ment released Fri­day by depart­ment that he was at Thompson’s prop­erty the day the ani­mals were released, where he observed that two pri­mates were held in sep­a­rate, small bird cages. A brown bear was also kept in a cage that wasn’t fit for its size, he said.

“The bear was very aggres­sive and was bit­ing at the wire cage,” Stalf said in the affi­davit, which is dated Tuesday.

Posted by AP News on Apr 27 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.