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Ohio To Eliminate Panels On Wild Animal Ownership
By: Associated Press
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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – Ohio is eliminating two state panels created to help regulate ownership of dangerous wild animals after a suicidal man released lions, tigers and other creatures at his farm in 2011.
The Columbus Dispatch reports the Dangerous and Restricted Animals Advisory Board and the Dangerous Wild Animals State Emergency Response Commission will be discontinued Feb. 20.
The panels were implemented as part of the state’s Dangerous Wild Animal Act passed in 2012. The law followed national outcry over a police decision to kill 49 animals that 62-year-old Terry Thompson released from his Zanesville farm before he took his own life.
Sen. Troy Balderson says both panels have accomplished their goals and they have no reason to meet.
An agriculture department representative says the public is “unequivocally safer” now compared to 2011.