To protect people and animals, support HB 1151
Printed in the Chronicle on Saturday,
January 24, 2004
Our readers' opinions
To the editor:
2003 seemed like the year that wild
animals kept as pets finally got fed up with captivity and took matters
into their own hands, so to speak. Incidents of rebellion ranged from
Gambian rats passing monkey pox on to people, to a tiger attack which
nearly halved the inseparable magic duo, Siegfried and Roy. Last month a
boy in North Carolina wasn�t so lucky as the former magician, when he was
dragged into the cage by his family�s Bengal tiger.
That attack proved fatal.
In nearby Rainier last August, a
black bear escaped for the fourth time from a collection of exotic animals
that included a grizzly bear, Bengal tiger, cougar and alligators.
Thurston County sheriffs were concerned about public safety, as well as
the welfare of the animals.
Private individuals often don�t
realize, until too late, that wild animals require special care, diet,
housing and maintenance, and do not take kindly to captivity.
Consequently, they will resort to de-clawing, chaining or attempt to beat
the animal into submission.
I witnessed this firsthand while
visiting a woman who kept tigers and other exotic animals on a few acres
in Snohomish County. For some reason she went into the small, barren and
muddy chain-link cage where the tigers were kept.
When one of them playfully reached
for her, she grabbed a heavy tree limb and clubbed the tiger over the head
with all her might.
From the points of view of lions,
tigers and bears who are kept penned up 24/7 (for someone�s hobby or to
satisfy an inflated human ego), this issue goes way beyond property rights
or childhood dreams of owning a wild animal as a pet.
And as long as there is an exotic pet
trade there will be poachers out killing lionesses or tigresses and
stealing their young to sell as pets. To protect people and animals, ask
your representatives to support HB 1151, which would restrict future
private possession of wild animals such as large cats, bears and
alligators.
Jim Robertson