Animal behavior - not just for animals

By Charles Sowell  

OCTOBER 30, 2011 10:24 a.m. (0)

The Ohio man who killed himself after letting Bengal tigers and African lions out of their cages was certainly an aberration, but wildlife officials in South Carolina say individual wild animals are set free all the time.

They say owners who adopt a cute little cougar kitty recoil at the animal once it grows to full size – 250 pounds of muscle that is absolutely silent when it runs after prey. Or they can’t afford to feed it. Or the animal escapes from an inferior pen or enclosure.

Officials say such animals roaming the woods are a byproduct of an unregulated trade that has flourished in the state.

Outside of county ordinances there is no statewide law concerning keeping and selling dangerous exotic species, said Kim Chriswell, education director for Safe Haven and Educational Adventures in Dacusville, which cares for exotic animals.

Greenville County’s animal control ordinance outlaws dangerous exotics.

“Pickens does not ban dangerous exotics. Most counties don’t,” Chriswell said.

South Carolina is one of a dozen states that have no rules on trading in dangerous exotic animals.

State Sen. David Thomas plans to introduce legislation regulating the trade in exotic animals in the next legislative session. Past attempts have failed due to opposition from the pet industry.

“There are federal rules on transporting big cats across state lines,” said Adam Roberts, executive vice president of Born Free USA, an advocacy group that lobbies for ending the trade in exotic pets nationwide.

“But the Ohio incident makes it obvious that those rules are only loosely enforced. Anybody raising those kinds of numbers of big cats isn’t just doing it for the local market.”

Terry Thompson, 67, opened the cages at his 73-acre private reserve near Zanesville and set free 56 animals. Deputies in Muskingum County killed 49 of them – 18 Bengal tigers, nine African lions and eight lionesses; six black bears; three mountain lions; two grizzly bears; two wolves; and a baboon.

“The only people who should keep dangerous exotics are certified zoos and preserves,” Roberts said. “What happened in Ohio was a tragedy, but it could have been much worse if one of those big cats had grabbed a child.”

In South Carolina, there has never been a report of a cougar attacking a human being in the wild, state Department of Natural Resources officials said, and sightings are rare.

Two sets of what may be mountain lion tracks were found recently in Ellicott Rock Wilderness, one set nearly six inches across and the other about four, they were likely left by mountain lions let go by their owners, or escaped, said Chriswell.

Safe Haven has a 250-pound male Western cougar named Tecumseh who was bred in captivity for the pet trade, she said. The Dacusville organization got him from another rescue organization in West Virginia that was suffering from funding cutbacks.

Safe Haven takes in dozens of exotic pets every year from owners overwhelmed by both the cost and the effort it takes to care for the animals. They have large exotic birds, monkeys and Tecumseh as well as an extensive collection of venomous snakes. The snakes were found in an abandoned warehouse in Oconee County.

The most dangerous animal at Safe Haven is an Indian spectacled cobra.

“We keep him in here,” Chriswell said, opening an outer enclosure gate leading to the cobra’s main pen. “We do this in case it ever gets out. This is not the kind of animal you want to get to the outside.”

Symptoms from a cobra bite can begin in as little as 15 minutes. The bite can be fatal in less than an hour.

“The native Eastern panthers have been extinct for a long time now,” Chriswell said. “People buy these Western cougars as kittens – when they’re cute and cuddly – but in just a few months that cute mountain lion kitten is the size of a German Shepard and the owners don’t know how to deal with it.”

An Oakway man in Oconee County shot a Western cougar on his porch about 10 years ago. An analysis of the animals internal organs found the cat had been living on commercial dog and cat food.

DNR officials searched the area and found no less than 17 families in a 25-mile circle of Oakway had pet cougars, said Dennis Chastain, a wildlife expert who has researched and written about mountain lion sightings all over the state.

“Absent any other evidence it’s just hard to tell the difference between a large dog and a panther track,” said Chastain. “But if you see a mountain lion it is a sure bet it is a Western animal that has escaped or was released by the owner. There is also some evidence the cats are breeding here.”