Choice quotes from the Ohio private zoo escape

[Tale]

From various sources via Google News.

Headline: 49 freed exotic beasts dead in Ohio; monkey still on the loose

ZANESVILLE, OHIO The woman’s voice on the other end of the 911 call was calm, if a little annoyed.

“There’s a bear and a lion out,” she said.

“There’s a bear and a lion out?” the operator asked, just as calmly.

“Yeah,” said the woman, “Right up behind us.” The caller was asked to repeat that last part. “Yeah,” she said. “They’re chasing Terry’s horses.”

At 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Kopchak went outside to retrieve his horse and noticed a commotion to the north, on Thompson’s property.

“I looked up there and saw a figure,” he told the Star. “And I said, ‘That is not a horse.’ It was a bear.”

As he quietly corralled his horse back to the barn, he spotted a male lion no more than 10 metres away, resting next to a wire fence.

“He was just sitting there looking at us, and he was huge,” Kopchak said.

Once inside the barn, he called his 84-year-old mother, instructing her to dial 911. Through a window, he witnessed a roaring tiger bounding after a gaggle of horses.

Kate Riley, 20, whose family owns a nearby cattle farm, said the animals' owner would sometimes come and take their dead cows to feed his lions.

"He'd have claw marks all over him," she told the Columbus Dispatch newspaper.

[Trippy]

Article link?

[Tale]

Articles are everywhere. Figured everyone would know it from the news by now, so I didn't include a link. I just wanted to record some of the most bizarre quotes.

Here are the links then: link - link - link

[Merusk]

You haven't heard about this, Trippy? It's national news in the US.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15364027

A guy outside of Zanesville, OH who ran a private animal farm filled with exotic beasts committed suicide by animal.... after setting at least 48+/- of the dangerous beasts free.  Lions, Tigers, Wolves, Bears and other things lived there and the Sheriff was interviewed on NPR saying "We were just waiting for something bad.. but not like this."

The only things that were still caged (at least when I heard this morning) were the monkeys, chimps and orangutan he kept inside the house.

Last report I read said they'd already found and shot 30 of them but didn't know quite where the last 18+ were.

Ohio has quite lax laws about keeping these animals.

[Trippy]

Sorry still at work and haven't seen them yet.

[Tale]

[MahrinSkel]

They're all dead except for a monkey, which apparently has some freaky African monkey herpes.

--Dave

[Tale]

18 Bengal tigers - dead
9 male lions - dead
8 female lions - dead
6 black bears - dead
3 mountain lions - dead
2 grizzly bears - dead
1 baboon - dead
1 wolf - dead
1 grey wolf - dead
1 grizzly bear - recaptured
3 leopards - recaptured
2 monkeys - recaptured
1 macaque monkey - missing

link

Edit: apparently they plan to hand back the recaptured animals to the guy's wife (who had left him) as she is now their legal owner.

[Merusk]

Yeah just read the updated stories.  All dead except the monkey they can't find and the 6 they did get manage to get tranqued and to the zoo.   Those are expected to be returned to the dead guy's widow, because they're her property.    

[Strazos]

WTF, they couldn't tranq the rest of those? Especially the Bengal tigers - not many of those hanging around I don't think.

[Trippy]

WTF, they couldn't tranq the rest of those? Especially the Bengal tigers - not many of those hanging around I don't think.

They tried at least once and all that did was piss the Bengal tiger off more. And yes those are especially sad since they are endangered.

[Merusk]

Tranqs take time to work, they aren't instant.  They also have to be calibrated for the size and weight of the animal, which also takes time.  The cops didn't get to the site until about 5:30 on Tuesday evening from what I've read. 

It was a shitty decision but since they were already finding animals off-property and near a population center in a state where it's dark by 6pm right now it was the call that had to be made.

[angry.bob]

It's about tiime to shut down all these fucking private zoos and hunting grounds. There's no reason for them to exist, and there's no way possible the guy was taking adequate care of 18 Bengal tigers and 17 adult lions, let alone all the rest of the stuff. The fucking Columbus Zoo would be hard pressed to take care of that many lions and tigers.

Also, I'm pissed because it's illegal for me to buy a single male Atlas Beetle because it might get loose and eat some rottting vegetation, but this unstable cocksucker could buy over 40 man-killing predators?

[Pennilenko]

You sound angry.....bob.

[Soln]

this shit made me livid on the drive home.  All of it.

[Ingmar]

It's pretty unlikely that random sherriff's departments in Ohio are equipped for capturing large predators, too. This dude was a fucking tool, no doubt about it.

[Hawkbit]

Until recently, I spent the last 15 years in Columbus.  There are at least three major, serious (read:fucking insane) exotic owners that I know of within an hour.  I knew of this guy, but didn't know him. 

Another group from the late 90s was the Siberian Tiger Foundation.  I think they had 15-20 large cats, and I've met and handled at least three of their cubs (and an ocelot, which was totally awesome).  As with all of these situations, there is shady stuff going on behind the scenes.  STF was stealing money from people that wanted to be trained as cat handlers, possessed cats that people weren't caring for but didn't really rehab the cats.  Again, it's another husband/wife team, and when the marriage when in the crapper so did the quality of life for the cats.

It would be pretty awesome to be around one of these on a daily basis, but not at the expense that it costs these animals.  Also, there's a crapton of small cats that need homes at shelters... how about one of them instead of a half-tonner?

[Ingmar]

A housecat does not serve as a virtual manhood extension the way a tiger does.

[Sand]

  I understand why they did what they did, but I dont like it. RIP animals.

[Hawkbit]

A housecat does not serve as a virtual manhood extension the way a tiger does.

It's okay to buy a red corvette when one hits that age, too.  Just not a tiger.

[Cyrrex]

I understand why they did what they did, but I dont like it. RIP animals.

I know what you are saying, but I'm not sure I can even go as far as to say I understand it.  Fuck humans.  Man, we are some stupid pieces of shit.

[IainC]

One of the links above says he'd been convicted of 11 counts of animal cruelty since 2004. How is someone like that still allowed to own animals?

And yeah, the whole 'private zoo' or big cats as pets thing is super retarded. There are more tigers in the state of Texas than there are in the wild in India.

[Ingmar]

There are occasional happy endings for the tigers, at least:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/19/MN071LJ7QM.DTL

[Ghambit]

If this was Cleveland they'd have taken their sweet time killin those animals.   

[kaid]

It's pretty unlikely that random sherriff's departments in Ohio are equipped for capturing large predators, too. This dude was a fucking tool, no doubt about it.

Or if they are they may have a handful of actual tranq rounds because who in the hell would stockpile large numbers of tranq rounds anticipating having to deal with that many large predators on the loose at the same time. While it saddens me what the cops did I have to say they made the only call they could make on this one.

[Sky]

There are occasional happy endings for the tigers

That poor massage therapist.

[Azazel]

I understand why they did what they did, but I dont like it. RIP animals.

What a cunt.

[Sand]

Huh? Im a cunt for being upset over the senseless loss of life of animals being shot by local authorities?

[Paelos]

Huh? Im a cunt for being upset over the senseless loss of life of animals being shot by local authorities?

Put it in perspective, if a child been killed by one of those loose animals, what would have been the response?

They did the right thing, the animals were as good as dead once that asshole got his hands on them.

[Trippy]

No Azazel is the one being an idiot. Sand didn't say they shouldn't have been shot.

[Paelos]

No Azazel is the one being an idiot. Sand didn't say they shouldn't have been shot.

I see.

[Engels]

Listen, I push to the head of the queue to beat on Sand when he's being a douche, but in this case, he didn't say anything objectionable, and ya'll are just itching to fight. Don't worry, he'll be along presently with another dose of facepalm, but this time ain't one of them.

[Miasma]

I didn't quite get that and assumed he meant to quote something else which referred to the douchbag owner of the animals.

[Sand]

No Azazel is the one being an idiot. Sand didn't say they shouldn't have been shot.

Thank you. I thought that was fairly apparent.

[01101010]

It is actually one of those philosophical puzzles about moral and ethical avenues to pursue under these conditions. Attempt to actually capture/contain these beasts with the possibility a person could be harmed, or commit to killing said beasts. Damned either way.

And that pic of the lion laying dead in the field by the fence was heart wrenching given the lion has been my family's symbol for generations.