My friend wrote this up the other day after the incident. I agree with most of it.
Allow me to babble on about emergency preparedness and response for a little while, because it is fascinating to me and I want to write down my thoughts.
Yesterday, 49 large exotic animals (big cats, bears,wolves) were set loose in the area around Zanesville, OH. Their owner, a man who had been running the "Muskingum County Animal Farm", allegedly set the animals free before committing suicide. Numerous complaints had been made and investigated at this location, and the man, Terry Thompson, had several animal abuse/neglect charges against him. Despite these charges, the facility remained in operation. After being set free, the animals roamed around the Zanesville area near major roadways and residences. At least 49 were shot by law enforcement officers.
A lot of my friends are outraged about this incident, as am I. However, I think it's important to direct the outrage at the person responsible - Terry Thompson. He owned these animals, he cared for them improperly, and he deliberately set them free instead of placing them in proper facilities. Yes, he had multiple animal-related charges against him and complaints had been made about his facility. It's frustrating that he was not shut down before this event, but I think that this only highlights the importance of stricter laws and greater prosecution of animal law violations. We live in a culture in which animals are property. Even severe abuse charges (for example, many incidents of horrific abuse of pit bulls) are not punished very severely, as the existing laws are just too weak. The punishments are fines and maybe some jail time, if the prosecution proves their case, which can be difficult - ownership of an animal can be difficult to establish, there may be no witnesses to the cruelty, the physical evidence may not be substantial, and so on. There is usually little support or resources for pursuing these kinds of cases. Very few cases receive much public attention, and this attention usually dies off by the time the case goes to court.
In addition to these sad facts, most animal control departments are in dire financial straits - actually, this is true of many law enforcement organizations, period. Police departments around the country have faced continuous layoffs over the past several years. Despite massive increases in "homeland security" funding, we currently have at least 3,000 fewer police officers than on 9/11, 2001. Many smaller departments are understaffed to the point that officers are actually in danger because they lack backup or they are working crazy overtime (which pays well but has terrible health consequences - officers retire and drop dead - and also impacts response time and cognitive skills). Even if the departments were fully staffed, their training in NO way prepares them for something like this, and why would it? Police training is not ideal. They tend to spend a disproportionate amount of time on skills that many officers will never actually need but that suit the police mentality - use of firearms, combat tactics, car chases, running obstacle courses, etc. They don't spend nearly enough time on skills they need every day, like conflict resolution, counselling victims, things like that. What sort of training would prepare an officer for a massive release of large, dangerous animals? Many of the officers may have never even SEEN one of these animals outside of a television screen, let alone be faced by one in the "suburban jungle."
Which brings me to my thoughts on how officers might have responded. Let's think about logistics here. People are upset that the animals were shot - I am, too, but not because I think that was an inappropriate response. I'm upset that the animals were ever in that situation at all. Let's think about how we might have handled the situation in an ideal world...
You're the police chief in Zanesville, OH. Let's Google the department website and see how many officers you have... In 2000, the population was just over 25,000 people. The Zanesville PD website says you have 56 officers, and that would be split into at least two or three shifts - most likely three, so that gives you 19 officers on duty at the time. Your officers carry firearms, but they're most likely pistols. You probably have some long-range weapons available... maybe. Okay, so it's a Wednesday afternoon and you've got 19 cops on duty. Your other cops are on days off, sleeping, or with their families. You get a call that someone has let a crap load* of animals loose on your town. What do you do?
Your immediate concern is public safety - that is, after all, the mission of your department. You don't know how aggressive or dangerous these animals are, but they seem to be mostly large carnivores, and that's a big concern. School might be out soon, so you're going to have a bunch of kids coming home. You probably have people in their yards or going about their business in shopping areas. You need to act NOW. You are in no way prepared for something like this - the nearest AZA zoo is in Columbus, OH, 61 miles away. You alert your officers in the field and let them know that public safety comes first, if they encounter an animal, it needs to be stopped.
You would probably prefer NOT to kill all these animals - maybe you like animals yourself, or maybe you're just concerned about bad PR. You try to think of a way to bring the animals in safely. Tranquilizer guns! Okay, who has tranquilizer guns? The zoo in Columbus probably has some, right? Reports say that there were maybe 4 guns available and not nearly enough darts for the 50-something officers who arrived to help. Let's pretend that we did have enough tranq guns and darts, though - who's going to tranq the animals? As wikith (a vet!) pointed out, it's not like in the movies. Tranquing animals is HARD - Jack Hanna agrees. They're moving, possibly even towards you, and you have to get the dart into muscle. Even if you do, it's not like the animal stumbles and drops immediately. No, it's angry and scared, pretty much the worst combination in a large, dangerous animal you could face. Even if you successfully tranq it, then what? The animal goes down and you need to approach it to make sure it's down and to secure it for transport - you can't just leave it there, it's going to eventually wake up! Who approaches it? Who can be sure the animal is really down? If you make a mistake, you could be dead. As a police officer, do you even know how to tell if an animal is really out and safe to approach?
Let's imagine the animal is safely tranq'd and ready for transport. How the hell are you going to get it out of here? You can't throw it in the back of your Crown Vic and take it to the police station. Do you have secure crates for 49 BIG animals? A dog crate won't do - you need a secure, heavy-duty, metal transport crate for a 200-300lb animal that might wake up in transport and be PISSED. Where are you going to get those, and how long will they take to arrive? And once they do arrive, where are you going? The jail isn't going to work. You're going to need separate cages for each animal, because who knows if they all get along. The local shelter is probably full of dogs and cats and not safe for large animals, anyway.
Even if you did have somewhere to take the animals, then what? They're all going to need feeding and medical attention in the next 24 hours. You're going to need staff who know how to handle animals of this size and temperament - people willing to work with them and around them for however long it takes to find placements for all of them. And placements where? When zoos are expecting a new animal, they spend months preparing an exhibit and getting ready for the animal's arrival. You have 49 large, needs-intensive and unexpected animals on your hands - who's going to take them? Many of them are likely solitary creatures who would not usually live with another animal. Even if they are animals that can be kept together, you have no idea what they've experienced - maybe they've been kept in isolation and don't know how to relate to their own kind. If you owned a zoo, would you say "Sure, we'll add some lions to our collection?" Hell no. Your zoo lions are worth hundreds of thousands of collars, maybe they're part of a captive breeding program - you can't just throw some extra lions in there and call it good. And nobody knows what kind of diseases these animals might have - they probably need to be quarantined so some vet work can be done.
Even if you COULD find zoos to take them here in the US or abroad, you then need to transport the animals. Who's going to pay for this? Again, you face the issue of getting proper containers and vehicles and preparing the animals for transport. Some of them will probably need to be flown - who's going to organize that? As I mentioned, police departments are already cash-strapped - who the crap* is going to pay for the transport of 49 big animals to their new homes? Should the zoos have to pay, when they're really doing everyone a favor by making space for these animals? And what do we do with them while we all quibble over the bill?
So. While it's definitely tragic that these beautiful animals were killed yesterday, I think it's important to keep this incident in perspective. The local police department was in no way prepared to handle something like this, and if their budget was increased to pay for "large animal escape" training, I bet the local residents would be hollerin'. That's the problem, isn't it? It's easy to look back now and say "We should have been prepared", but preparedness costs MONEY. It's a gamble on something that may never happen but if it does, it could be awful. I don't fault the police department or the officers at all for how they handled this situation. They neutralized a threat to public safety with the resources they had available.
I DO fault Terry Thompson, that self-absorbed blockhead*. These animals are COMPLETELY inappropriate for private owners, and his actions of freeing them all before committing suicide is indefensible. There is absolutely no excuse for it. I also place blame on normal citizens, honestly - continually clamoring for lower taxes means cuts are made to the programs nobody defends, and this usually includes animal control, because people don't appreciate the work animal control departments do every day. Our own local animal control fights to keep its doors open every year because of continued budget cuts - our entire COUNTY would have NO animal control officers if their department was closed. I also blame a culture that treats animals as property and not as sentient beings deserving of protection under the law. I can't go all "animal rights"-y, because meat is delicious, but I do believe we should strengthen laws about animal neglect and abuse, inhumane treatment and what kinds of animals should legally be kept by private individuals - strengthen the laws and give them TEETH. Give police departments and animal control departments the training needed to collect compelling evidence in these cases and get the cases through court, and get some punishments severe enough to actually deter this crap*. Crack down on the SUPPLIERS of these animals - where the heck* did this guy get his hands on lions and tigers? Find the suppliers and kill the flow of exotic animals into anyplace other registered, accredited, well-staffed zoos.
(*edited for language)