PRESS-CITIZEN (Iowa City, Iowa) 13 June 06 Time to restrict which animals count as pets
Last week's shooting of a caiman in northern rural Johnson County is simply a bad situation all around. On the one side, there's a dedicated couple (Torben Platt and Jennifer Doll) who operate Witty Kitties, a rescue shelter for animals that have been abused, neglected or abandoned. On the other side, there's dozens of nearby houses in which residents have understandable concerns about living so close to such dangerous animals ("County resident kills alligator-like reptile," June 8, and "Shelter owner: Caimans secure," June 9).
If anything good can come out of this situation, it's a greater awareness of the role that animal control workers should play as well as a renewed discussion of what types of animals should be classified as domestic in Iowa.
The Johnson County Sheriff's Department said the shooter was within his rights because the caiman, which is not an endangered species in Iowa, was on his property and had acted aggressively toward his daughter. Local residents say that they had called the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the sheriff's department, but felt that the officials did not respond quickly enough. Workers in the Iowa City/Coralville Animal Care and Adoption Center said they were within 20 minutes of responding and were frustrated that they were not allowed to do their job.
The sheriff's department deemed the shooting to be an act of self-defense, and it's easy to understand why a local resident would decide to take matters into his own hands. After all, it's not everyday that a rural Johnson County resident finds a four-foot reptile -- with a large mouth full of sharp teeth -- on his property. As F. Wayne King, curator of herpetology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, told the Press-Citizen, caimans never grow large enough to become man eaters, but they can "bite the heck out of you." In fact, Witty Kitties' Web site explains, "To an adult gator or caiman, humans look like lunch. This is true even with an animal that you have known, and handled, for many years. The feeding instinct is very, very strong."
Even though there are simple safety precautions that the residents could have taken, it's a bit far-fetched to imagine that average Iowans, walking beside a lake outside their own property, would readily know how to act when meeting such a dangerous, non-native predator species.
We hope that the shooting will be an isolated incident and not a precedent-setting event. Although everyone has the right to self-defense, the first reaction should be to call the proper authorities.
We likewise consider the work done at Witty Kitties to be a community service, as do some of those who also support the shooting. As explained in Doll's guest opinion, the animals at the rescue shelter started out as someone else's pets and were either abused or abandoned. Without places like Witty Kitties, more of such animals would need to be put down. As long as the owning of such animals is legal -- and as long as some owners fail to live up to their responsibilities -- places like Witty Kitties are a humane necessity.
Rather than simply blame either the shooter or the shelter, it's time to restrict which dangerous animals can be kept as pets in Johnson County -- a change that would dry up both the supply and the demand for sheltering such animals. In the meantime, however, Platt and Doll need to be extra vigilant to ensure that no animals escape their shelter again.
Time to restrict which animals count as pets