Elizabeth Ann Wheeler, a Delaware resident for 86 years, died on Friday (March 23, 2012) at her daughter’s home following a brief illness being treated with Hospice services.
COLUMBUS — An Ohio lawmaker is proposing that owners of exotic animals be subjected to background checks and required to fence their property — measures supporters say might have saved dozens of lions, tigers, and other wild creatures that were shot by authorities months ago after their suicidal owner let them loose.
COLUMBUS — New ownership of lions, tigers and other dangerous animals likely would be banned in the state under proposed rules that would allow existing owners to keep them but require them to face new permit rules, according to members of a committee studying exotic animals.
COLUMBUS — Ohio Gov. John Kasich has put in place temporary measures to crack down on private ownership of dangerous wild animals while tougher laws are written this fall. Some animal owner groups welcomed the order, though others have blasted it as not going far enough. Critics, including the Humane Society of the United States, say they would have preferred a ban on the purchase and sale of exotic animals. That’s what Kasich’s Democratic predecessor, former Gov. Ted Strickland, ordered before leaving office in January.
The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium’s fund for the six animals rescued from Zanesville has collected more than $26,000.
By all accounts, what happened Tuesday night and Wednesday in Muskingum County was the largest exotic animal escape in American history. Some 56 animals, most of them large cats, bears and wolves, escaped from a private farm near Zanesville shortly before dark on Tuesday when their owner released them from their cages, cut the cage wires to prevent the cages from being reclosed and then committed suicide.
ZANESVILLE — Sheriff’s deputies shot nearly 50 wild animals — including 18 rare Bengal tigers and 17 lions — in a big-game hunt across the Ohio countryside Wednesday after the owner of an exotic-animal park threw their cages open and committed suicide in what may have been one last act of spite against his neighbors and police.
Much to the surprise of some Radnor Township dogs, a stick lying in the yard turned out to be a young alligator.