Exotic 'pets': What happens when good intentions turn deadly

BY EILEEN BRADY
​​THE NEWS JOURNAL OF WILMINGTON, OHIO

“There’s more tigers in the state of Ohio, in people’s back yards, than … in India right now, in the wild," — Tim Harrison

Tim Harrison’s advocacy for exotic animals — and for common sense — has taken him from southwest Ohio all over the world, speaking on national news programs, teaching for Homeland Security, and being featured in an award-winning documentary. 
He will be in Wilmington April 3 on behalf of his organization, Outreach for Animals, as the featured speaker for the Clinton County Reads dinner at the General Denver, which will be a brief stop on his whirlwind schedule, which ranges from rescuing alligators and pythons from Ohio basements to speaking about “Big Cats in Our Back Yard” with actress Tippi Hedren in Los Angeles just days before he speaks here. 
The Clinton County Reads 2014 book choice, “A Walk in the Woods,” includes information about wild animals along the Appalachian Trail, most often bears, which author Bill Bryson names as one of his great fears along the trail. “A grizzly may chew on a limp form for a minute or two but generally will lose interest and shuffle off,” Bryson writes. “With black bears, however, playing dead is futile, since they will continue chewing on you until you are considerably past caring.” 

As with most people, Bryson has a healthy respect for wild animals and wants to avoid encountering them. But in Ohio and across the United States, obtaining and keeping exotic and dangerous animals as pets is a frightening and controversial issue examined in “The Elephant in the Living Room,” the critically acclaimed film that features Harrison’s work as an advocate for “proper behavior around wildlife.” 

“There’s more tigers in the state of Ohio, in people’s back yards, than … in India right now, in the wild,” says Harrison, who is a forthright, no-nonsense person who has seen the underbelly of Ohio’s lax laws — as well as the underbelly of a 16-foot Burmese python. 

Harrison says the explosion of exotic-animal ownership can be tracked to the increasing popularity of reality TV shows that many of us would deem “educational.” People have doubted the link, but he tells them to ask the owners themselves, who frequently reply that they’d seen someone on television working with a wild animal. Harrison also points out that exotic-animal ownership is often viewed as a status symbol among various socioeconomic levels.

“The Elephant in the Living Room” won Best Feature Documentary at the 25th Annual Genesis Awards in 2011, and when writer/director/producer Michael Webber accepted the award, he brought Tim Harrison with him, telling the audience in Los Angeles, “This is the guy right here who for 35 years is the unsung hero who has gone and taken tigers out of people’s basements, who has taken 200-pound pythons out of people’s houses … this is a guy who is on the front lines every day, and nobody has known about it.”

Harrison was on the scene of what is now known as “the Zanesville massacre,” on Oct. 18, 2011, when Terry Thompson released dozens of wild animals — lions, leopards, primates, tigers, wolves, bears and others — that had been kept on his rural property, before killing himself. The community was on lockdown as news spread of the animal rampage. Eventually, police officers shot and killed almost 50 of the animals as they fled the property, with some venturing to nearby Interstate 70. 

The Zanesville case dominated the national news at the time and shed light on the free market of exotic animals here in Ohio, where cougars, zebras, African porcupines or any number of non-native species were sold at auction or through a “pet trader” that offers wild animals in classified ads. 

Ohio was one of seven states with no regulation regarding the sale or ownership of these types of creatures, according to the Humane Society of the United States. Days after the Zanesville ordeal, Gov. John Kasich signed an executive order to increase the powers of humane officers, shut down unauthorized auctions and restrict existing ones. 

However, although Gov. Ted Strickland had issued an executive order in January 2011 that would have prevented anyone “convicted of an offense involving the abuse or neglect of any animal pursuant to any state, local, or federal law” from owning exotic animals, Kasich had let it expire, preventing Outreach for Animals from being able to seize the animals owned by Terry Thompson, who’d been in federal prison. Harrison is currently working with Marcy Hawley of Wilmington on a book about what happened before, during and after Zanesville.

Harrison said that he spoke on Jay Thomas’ radio program and likened the governor’s role in the exotic animal problems to the mayor in the movie “Jaws.” “Even though he knew people were going to get hurt, he’s saying, ‘Go back in the water.’ It’s going to bite him in the ass morally, financially, physically.”

A year before Zanesville, Tim Harrison had spoken to Ohio lawmakers at the state capitol building about Ohio’s lax laws in regard to buying and keeping dangerous exotic animals. “I want you to remember this, anybody’s that’s listening up here or listening in the hallways: You now know what’s going on,” he said. “You can no longer stick your head in the sand. You can’t say, ‘I don’t know. … Now you know.”

Harrison has spent most of his life as an advocate for both humans and animals, protecting the public in his role as a police officer, firefighter and paramedic for the city of Oakwood, and protecting exotic and dangerous animals when they’ve been uprooted from their natural habitats and placed in American homes. He invites those who may not agree with regulations on exotic animals to attend his discussion in Wilmington so he can explain what he has seen on the front lines of the issue.
​The success of “The Elephant in the Living Room” has led to new relationships with influential people and with new sanctuaries to help the animals rescued by Outreach for Animals. To donate to the organization, visit www.outreachforanimals.org or send to Outreach for Animals, P.O. Box 24114, Dayton, OH 45424.