Talk of exotic animal ban stirs owners

Owners of once-wild pets band to fight proposed regulations

RALEIGH -- The tempest caused by a proposed ban on exotic and dangerous beasts has whipped up a guerrilla network of animal lovers who don't want their favorite creatures outlawed.

People running small, private zoos and sanctuaries have attacked members of a legislative study group who want to ban individual ownership of a list of risky critters -- from lions and tigers to anacondas and apes -- and to restrict people and institutions allowed to keep them.

Joined by reptile hobbyists who fear their snakes or lizards will be taboo, these critics claim radical animal rights activists have hijacked the study group. Watching warily, representatives of North Carolina's pork and poultry interests worry their animals might be the next targets.

This nascent resistance movement has quickly learned the art of infighting, forming an alphabet soup of organizations -- the N.C. Association of Reptile Keepers, or NCARK; the N.C. Exotic Animal Keepers, NCEAK -- and lighting up e-mail lists and Web sites.

"Basically, we got together because we were getting our butts kicked by this study group," said Doug Evans, co-founder of the Conservators' Center, a sanctuary for big cats and other exotic animals near Mebane.

They've aimed their most thunderous assault at the two top officials from the N.C. Zoological Park in Asheboro and animal rights activists who are voting members of the group. This includes a staff member of the Animal Protection Institute, a California-based organization zoo officials tapped to provide draft legislation and advice on an "inherently dangerous animal" ban.

"We want these lunatics to go back to California and console themselves over granola and leave the wildlife professionals of North Carolina alone," said Tanith Tyrr, reptile curator at the Cape Fear Serpentarium, a privately owned indoor zoo in Wilmington which also maintains the state's only anti-venom bank for cobras and other deadly, exotic snakes.

Dr. David Jones, director of the state zoo and a leading member of the study group, says blasts such as Tyrr's mask the need for a state law prohibiting or restricting private ownership of exotic animals. North Carolina is one of 11 states that don't ban or regulate such animals, zoo officials say, though about two dozen counties and towns have their own ordinances, including Durham, Orange and Johnston counties and Cary.

"Unfortunately, there's a lot of fear of the unknown here that isn't justified," said Jones, former chief of the London Zoo and a veteran of international wildlife and zoological organizations. "They're paranoid on this."

Death triggered action

Jones and the zoo's mammal curator, Lorraine Smith, started their campaign after the 2003 death of a 10-year-old Wilkes County boy killed by Tigger, a tiger his aunt kept in the yard. That attack was underscored by the 2004 mauling of a 14-year-old Surry County girl by one of four tigers her family kept on a farm near Lowgap.

Jones said zoo officials were also motivated by an increase in calls from animal control officers and other officials about exotic pets escaping from backyard pens or indoor cages and terrariums.

This broadened the scope of the study group beyond tigers or lions kept as private pets. Wolves, crocodiles, cobras, monkeys, pythons and dozens of other non-indigenous species have been considered for the dangerous animals list. Any exotic deemed capable of killing people, causing serious injury or infecting them is a potential candidate for a ban on private ownership.

Headed by officials of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the study group also includes veterinarians from two state agencies, the owner of a small family-run zoo in Wilmington and a reptile hobbyist. Leaders are scrambling to complete a report that was supposed to be finished by the beginning of the legislative session but may be delayed several more weeks.