Exotic animal sellers and owners say they were caught off-guard by Gov. Ted Strickland’s announcement Wednesday that he will issue an executive order banning the sale and possession of “wild and dangerous animals” such as bears, primates and crocodiles.
“Everybody woke up this morning to see that they agreed to this,” said Terry Wilkins, owner of Captive Born Reptiles, whose two Columbus stores sell pythons and other large and small snakes. “Strickland and the Farm Bureau – there’s going to be hell to pay.
“Why would they agree to this?” Wilkins asked. “These folks are attempting to put me out of business.”
Existing owners of such animals would be allowed to keep them under a grandfather clause but could not breed them or obtain more.
The executive order was in an eight-part, three-way deal brokered by Strickland between the Humane Society of the United States and the Ohio Farm Bureau. It stops a proposed constitutional amendment on farm-animal-care reforms from appearing on the November ballot. The Humane Society agreed to drop the issue after collecting more than 500,000 signatures to get it on the ballot.
Thurman Mullet, manager of Mount Hope Auction in Holmes County, said he doesn’t know how the governor’s order will affect the sale of exotic animals and reptiles that he holds three times a year. The sale on Sept. 16-18 is billed as including exotic cattle, camels, genets, kangaroos, primates, Russian hogs, wallabies and other animals.
“We support the Farm Bureau and we support their decision,” Mullet said. “We just do not have money to fight anything like that.”This is not going to kill our exotic sale, but I’m worried about what comes next.”
Meanwhile, farmers had a mixed reaction to the deal which included no restrictions on existing farms that raise hens in small “battery cages,” but would ban additional permits for new farms using the cages after this year. New hog farms would not be permitted to use so-called “gestation stalls” for pregnant sows after 2010, but all existing stalls can remain until 2025. And the state would adopt standards for “group housing” (instead of the small crates) for veal calves by 2017.
“It’s a giant step backwards,” said Pete Dull, co-owner of a 6,000-pig farm near Brookville in Montgomery County. “This makes me sick to my stomach.”
Dull said he plans to stop raising hogs when the ban on gestational crates takes effect in 2025.
The compromise means fulfilling a lifelong dream for egg farmer Tim Weaver of Weaver Brothers Eggs in Logan and Darke counties.
Weaver, 60, said keeping the issue off the ballot means he can pass his four poultry farms down to his children. He won’t have to worry about replacing the battery cages most of his hens are housed in – something his four-generation family business couldn’t afford.
“If we had the ballot issue and agriculture lost, my business would be doomed,” Weaver said.
Randy Brown of Maken Bacon Farm in Morral, Ohio, said he thinks pork farmers can live with phasing out pregnant sow “gestation stalls” by 2025.
“If I had my choices, I’d rather not have a 15-year-limit to get rid of gestation stalls,” he said, adding that that’s enough time to figure out how to convert 600 stalls into open pens.
Mark Ruff, a 37-year-old Circleville farmer, said his grain business and beef cows are equally affected by what’s going on in the agriculture industry.
“I think it’s a positive for all of agriculture,” he said. “We’ve got some clarity on this issue now. We can start focusing again on what’s best for the consumer … back to the business of making food.”
At the same time, while Strickland’s agreement backs regulation of so-called puppy mills and toughening existing penalties for cockfighting, it doesn’t outlaw dog auctions, said Mary O’Connor-Shaver, a Columbus-area animal-rights advocate.
“They don’t feel companion animals should be auctioned like livestock. I think the issue for the Ohio dog auctions will be passed readily,” she said, especially without the other elements S.B. 95 has attached to it.
A group called the Coalition to Ban Ohio Dog Auctions has been trying for at least two years to get a dog-auction ban on the statewide ballot.
Speaking on Buckeye Forum, The Dispatch‘s politics and government podcast, Strickland said the agreement to keep the issue off the ballot literally came together in the final hours before the press conference.
Strickland said he called both sides together Tuesday night at the Governor’s Residence in Bexley, but they left the meeting with “major, major disagreements.”
The governor said he determined that the ballot proposal by the Humane Society “was not the right course of action for Ohio,” would be costly and divisive and would have “a negative impact on Ohio agri-business.”
Two elements of the agreement will require legislative action – regulations on “puppy mills” and tougher criminal penalties for cock-fighting. Strickland said he has not talked with legislative leaders, but his staff discussed the issue and he thinks lawmakers are supportive.