COMMENTARY | I’ve had my fun with wild-animals-on-the-loose stories: that capybara in California; an anonymous, reluctantly-claimed baboon in New Jersey. But the news of escaped bears, lions, wolves and other predators in Ohio does not have me laughing.
Nearly 30 exotic animals have been shot, with three listed as still on the loose. Shot dead, not tranquilized; reportedly, deputies used their sidearms to shoot many of the animals at close range as darkness fell. No one has been injured, but the town of Zanesville is on lockdown. The owner of the exotic animal farm, Terry Thompson, found dead amidst the open animal cages, had been cited 30 times for various violations in regard to his exotic animals.
That’s 30 times in the past year.
This situation was one that was always coming, the only question was who would die, people or the animals. In this case, it was the animals, utterly innocent in their captivity and then their breach, and yet far too dangerous to wander populated areas. Many, like jaguars, tigers, bears, wolves and mountain lions, are carnivores, after all, without a readily available source of food. It’s now being reported that Thompson freed the animals and then committed suicide, which seems an attempted act of grotesque violence.
There are still three animals that have not been captured, according to ABC News: a mountain lion, a monkey and a grizzly bear. Both the mountain lion and the bear could adapt well to the Ohio terrain and climate, so the search could drag on. Meanwhile, the likelihood is that they will be among the scores of dead animals. It may have been less of a cruelty for Thompson to kill them all himself, instead of letting them loose only to be hunted down in a strange environment. He had to know that the animals weren’t going to survive their release. Even if law enforcement did not take the step of killing the animals, these are animals from cages, animals who would not have the skills to survive in the wild, especially a wild that looks nothing like their usual habitat.
It was a cruel thing Thompson did, taking in wild animals to suit his own purposes, a practice which has no justification in our modern society. It was a careless thing to not secure the property, to take so few precautions as to garner 30 violations in a single year. And it was an act of aggression to open the cages, leaving the animals and the people of Zanesville to fend for themselves.
So this story is not a funny story. It is a frightening story, and a sad story. There are dozens of dead animals who were too far away from home, who had no business in cages in the middle of the Midwest, who were killed because one man thought it was a good idea to have them and to let them go.