Someone needs to tell these nitwits that reptiles, and most other exotic animals for that matter, have not and do not pose any public safety concerns. Show them the statistics. That many more people die from falls down stairs, drown in swimming pools, etc etc. And you have to love how they show a pic of a rat snake in the video and say "this is a constrictor". As if it were a deadly and lethal rat snake

Ashwaubenon is in the Green Bay area by the way.



Quote

The Ashwaubenon Public Safety Department is working on an ordinance to ban exotic animals from the village.



Green Bay already has a similar ordinance in effect. Both communities say the law is needed even more now.



Poisonous rattlesnake. Constrictor. Neither snake is native to this part of the country but Ashwaubenon public safety officers came face-to-face with them while checking on a person's welfare inside an apartment last year.



"Right before we made entry they informed us there were exotic snakes in there, venomous snakes in there," Ashwaubenon humane officer Ryan Windorff said.



It happens in Green Bay, too.



"We had a fire even approximately four summers ago in an apartment complex, and when firemen went in they were trying to fight the fire and they came across a ten-and-a-half foot, eleven-foot red-tailed boa," city animal control officer Sharon Hensen recalled.



Both officers say they're encountering an increasing number of exotic animals -- anything from venous snakes and lizards to farm animals like roosters and donkeys living inside houses. Even hybrid wolves, all raised as pets.



"Things that you would normally consider finding in a zoo that are being kept in residential areas and residences," Windorff said, "so that's something we're concerned about."



Windorff wants to ban exotic animals purely for safety reasons.



"Any time you have any animal that's not domesticated -- as the traditional, domesticated dog and cat -- their behavior is unpredictable," he said.



Green Bay banned exotic animals five-and-a-half years ago but grants permits for about half the 45 exotic animals it comes across in a typical year.



"It's when we come across they're in wool blankets or they're laying on the floor of the kid's bedroom with a rock, that's, we have really difficult times," Hensen said.



There are no rabies vaccines for many of these animals, like the hybrid wolf, a wolf-dog mix.



An Ashwaubenon family with two small children had been raising one as a pet.



"Basically they're a vicious animal, a wild animal. They bite different than domestic dogs and they bite to kill, not to scare or injure," Windorff said.



He hopes to have an ordinance on the books as soon as possible.

http://www.wbay.com/Global/story.asp?S=11006244

[ Show Entire Thread ]