Officials work to get exotics owners registered

ANN SANNER

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLUMBUS — State offi­cials con­tinue to work with own­ers of exotic ani­mals to help them fully reg­is­ter their crea­tures with the Ohio Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture, even though the state dead­line for them to sub­mit infor­ma­tion was sev­eral weeks ago.

About 30 reg­is­tra­tions cov­er­ing roughly 200 ani­mals were filed with the state before the Nov. 5 dead­line, but they con­tained errors or omis­sions, accord­ing to the agri­cul­ture department.

One of the biggest prob­lems with the incom­plete forms was that some own­ers had yet to implant their wild ani­mals with a microchip con­tain­ing infor­ma­tion to help iden­tify them if they got lost or escaped, said Erica Pitch­ford Hawkins, a spokes­woman for the agri­cul­ture department.

Now the depart­ment and the Ohio Vet­eri­nary Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion are work­ing to help the own­ers abide by the microchip require­ment by con­nect­ing them to vet­eri­nar­i­ans who can per­form the task.

“The ones who are mak­ing an effort to come into com­pli­ance, we’re try­ing to let them do that as much as pos­si­ble,” Pitch­ford Hawkins said, adding that own­ers must keep a record of their cor­re­spon­dence with veterinarians.

Under a new state law, own­ers who don’t reg­is­ter could face a first-degree mis­de­meanor charge for a first offense, and a fifth-degree felony for any sub­se­quent offenses.

But the state isn’t yet refer­ring own­ers for pros­e­cu­tion if they have failed to reg­is­ter their ani­mals. That’s part of an agree­ment offi­cials have with four own­ers who are suing the state’s agri­cul­ture depart­ment and its direc­tor over the new law. The own­ers claim the new reg­u­la­tions threaten their First Amend­ment and prop­erty rights. A fed­eral court hear­ing on the law­suit is planned for mid-December.

A list of reg­is­tra­tions obtained by The Asso­ci­ated Press through a pub­lic records request show that at least 114 pri­vate own­ers have suc­cess­fully reg­is­tered ani­mals with the state. That fig­ure doesn’t include zoos or research facil­i­ties that also sub­mit­ted registrations.

Ohio’s restric­tions on exotic ani­mals had been among the nation’s weakest.

State law­mak­ers worked with a renewed sense of urgency to strengthen the law after an owner last fall released 50 crea­tures, includ­ing black bears and Ben­gal tigers, from an east­ern Ohio farm in Zanesville before he com­mit­ted sui­cide. Author­i­ties killed most of the ani­mals, fear­ing for the public’s safety.

Under the new law, cur­rent own­ers who want to keep their ani­mals must obtain the new state-issued per­mit by Jan. 1, 2014. They must pass back­ground checks, pay fees, obtain lia­bil­ity insur­ance or surety bonds, and show inspec­tors that they can prop­erly con­tain the ani­mal and care for it.

One of the fac­tors of obtain­ing a state per­mit includes timely registration.

If own­ers are denied per­mits or can’t meet the new require­ments, the state can seize the animals.

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