Ohio officials to return 5 exotic animals to widow

ANN SANNER

Asso­ci­ated Press

REYNOLDSBURG — State offi­cials will return five sur­viv­ing exotic ani­mals to a woman whose hus­band released dozens of wild crea­tures before com­mit­ting suicide.

The Ohio Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture announced the deci­sion Mon­day at an agency hear­ing in which the state was to defend its author­ity to quar­an­tine the ani­mals — two leop­ards, two pri­mates and a bear — on sus­pi­cion of infec­tious diseases.

A spokes­woman for the agency said that the state had exhausted its author­ity in the case and that the state’s agri­cul­ture direc­tor would lift the quar­an­tine order that was placed on the ani­mals in Octo­ber. Med­ical results released last week showed all five ani­mals are free of the dan­ger­ously con­ta­gious or infec­tious dis­eases for which they were tested.

That means the ani­mals can be returned to Mar­ian Thomp­son, of Zanesville, though it’s unclear when. Logis­tics for retriev­ing the ani­mals will have to be worked out between Thomp­son and the Colum­bus zoo, which has been hold­ing the ani­mals, said agri­cul­ture spokesman Erica Pitchford.

Once the ani­mals are returned to Thomp­son, noth­ing in Ohio law allows state offi­cials to check on their wel­fare or require improve­ments to con­di­tions in which they are kept, Pitch­ford said.

The local humane soci­ety could inter­vene with help from the county pros­e­cu­tor if there were an inves­ti­ga­tion into ani­mal cru­elty, she said.

“While repeated appeals have been made to local author­i­ties to seek a court order to inspect the Thomp­son party to ensure the safety of the ani­mals and the pub­lic, so far, no such local action has been taken,” Pitch­ford said.

Mes­sages were left Mon­day with the Musk­ingum County prosecutor.

Barry McEl­fresh, pres­i­dent of the county’s humane soci­ety, said he’s been to Thompson’s prop­erty three times to inves­ti­gate com­plaints since Octo­ber and found no violations.

“I’ve never had a prob­lem with Mar­ian,” McEl­fresh said. “I truly believe after all these goings on that she will be mak­ing a good effort.”

He said the county’s humane offi­cer is pre­pared to make inspec­tions and alert author­i­ties if she’s not prop­erly car­ing for the animals.

Zoo spokes­woman Patty Peters said the facil­ity must fol­low cer­tain pro­to­cols for the ani­mals to be handed over to Thomp­son. For instance, she said, the ani­mals must be sedated for the trans­fer, but they have to fast for 24 hours before being given the sedative.

Peters said the ani­mals were fed Mon­day morn­ing, and Wednes­day would likely be the ear­li­est they could be moved. Details are still being worked out, she said.

Thomp­son and her attor­ney, Robert McClel­land, declined to answer reporters’ ques­tions about the ani­mals’ return as they left Monday’s hear­ing at the department’s head­quar­ters in Reynolds­burg, just out­side of Columbus.

Thomp­son is the widow of Terry Thomp­son, who released 56 ani­mals — includ­ing black bears, moun­tain lions and Ben­gal tigers — from his east­ern Ohio farm Oct. 18 before he com­mit­ted sui­cide. Fear­ing for the public’s safety, author­i­ties killed 48 of the animals.

Three leop­ards, two Celebes macaques and a bear sur­vived and were taken to the Colum­bus zoo. One spot­ted leop­ard had to be euth­a­nized at the zoo in Jan­u­ary, and the other ani­mals have been there since Octo­ber. The macaques are small pri­mates; the female weighs about 6 pounds, and the male weighs more than 10 pounds.

Fred Polk, Thompson’s next-door neigh­bor, said he doesn’t want the ani­mals to return. Five crea­tures were killed on his prop­erty in Octo­ber, includ­ing a cougar that was 15 feet from his front porch.

The ordeal ter­ri­fied his wife, the 80-year-old Polk said. And if the ani­mals got out again, he said, “I’m going to file the biggest law­suit you’ve ever seen on them.”

McClel­land has told the agri­cul­ture depart­ment that his client has ade­quate cages for the sur­viv­ing ani­mals, accord­ing to a let­ter obtained last week by The Asso­ci­ated Press through a pub­lic records request.

State offi­cials issued a quar­an­tine order because they said they were con­cerned about reports that the ani­mals lived in unsan­i­tary con­di­tions where they could be exposed to disease.

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

Terry Thompson’s sui­cide, the ani­mals’ release and their killings led law­mak­ers to re-examine the state’s restric­tions on exotic pets, which are con­sid­ered some of the nation’s weakest.

The state Sen­ate recently passed a bill that would ban new own­er­ship of mon­keys, lions and other exotic ani­mals. It now goes to the House for consideration.

Gov. John Kasich, the Colum­bus zoo, and the Ohio Farm Bureau Fed­er­a­tion sup­port the mea­sure, which would allow cur­rent own­ers to keep their ani­mals by obtain­ing a new state-issued per­mit by 2014 and meet­ing other strict con­di­tions. Facil­i­ties accred­ited by some national zoo groups would be exempt from the bill, along with sanc­tu­ar­ies and research institutions.

Posted by AP News on Apr 30 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.