Exotic pet owners should face provincial regulations for proper care and safety
Ontario should catch up with every other province and regulate the ownership of dangerous and exotic “pets”
Ontarians can’t keep a pet wolf or even a wild turkey. The province, not surprisingly, thinks the first is dangerous and the second unacceptable because it’s a native species that belongs in the wild.
But the province has absolutely no problem with people keeping animals that are both dangerous and wild so long as they come from far away. Lions, tigers and jaguars, for example, are all OK.
This makes absolutely no sense. Worse still, people who own these humongous “pets” can open their fences to the public and charge an entry fee. Ontarians and tourists alike should be able to expect that something called a tiger farm or an exotic zoo would be subject to strong regulations around animal care and visitor safety.
Ontario is the only province that allows exotic pets without even the trouble of getting a permit, the Star’s Kate Allen and Wendy Gillis reported this week. Here, the ministry of community safety is responsible for animal welfare laws that protect all creatures — pets, wild and working animals — from cruelty and neglect. The ministry of natural resources regulates native species. Anything that falls in between those two mandates, and much does, simply slides under the provincial radar.
Many Ontario cities, including Toronto, have stepped into this void and passed their own bylaws, generally banning dangerous, exotic pets. But the lack of an overarching provincial system means the rules change from city to city and many rural communities — where roadside zoos are most likely to crop up — have no rules at all. That means we have no way to know even how many dangerous animals there are and no way to trace the handful of lions and tigers that have escaped their enclosures over the years back to their owners.
Madeleine Meilleur, minister of community safety and correctional services, sees no problem with any of this. The province doesn’t regulate exotic animals, she says, because municipalities know “what works best in their communities.” The evidence says otherwise.
In 2004, a 10-year-old boy was mauled by a tiger at a private roadside zoo in Southwold. The owner, who had succeeded in overturning the town’s bylaw, was later killed by his own tiger. It’s too much to expect that 444 municipalities all become experts in this.
Protecting the public (and the animals themselves) from people who do not have the ability to safely and properly keep 500-pound pets shouldn’t be a political minefield. Surely all three parties could agree on the basics of regulating the ownership of exotic animals.
This is such a no-brainer. There is no reason to wait until a tragedy thrusts this issue to the top of the legislative agenda.