Your Vancouver Province
Vancouver city councillor wants provincial ban on exotic pets
John Bermingham and Matthew Ramsey, The Province
Published: Wednesday, May 16, 2007
A Vancouver city councillor is asking for a province-wide ban on selling or keeping exotic pets.
The tragic mauling death of Tania Dumstrey-Soos in Bridge Lake has highlighted the dangers of exotic animals, Coun. Kim Capri told The Province yesterday.
"The tragedy that happened last week proves why the municipality-by-municipality [system of regulation] doesn't work," she said.
She said tiger owner Kim Carlton left Abbotsford because of an exotic-animal bylaw enacted in 2003 and moved to an area without a regulation to set up his Siberian Magic Zoo.
"Now you have a person who has lost their life, family members who witnessed this and were traumatized, and a cat that was euthanized."
Carlton told Global News the three-year-old Bengal tiger named Gangus that mauled his fiancee to death in front of his and her children was the only one on the property with claws. He said he was wondering whether to keep the animal or donate it to a zoo.
"He grabbed a hold of her leg and hung on," said an emotional Carlton. "There was nothing we could do."
Carlton was returning home from Abbotsford at the time. Dumstrey-Soos' son, Nick, witnessed the attack. Carlton's 12-year-old daughter Dallas tried to beat the tiger away with a bat, as his 14-year-old son, Kodiak, and Dallas's twin, Dakota, pulled the wounded woman away from the animal.
Abbotsford was the first jurisdiction in B.C. to prohibit keeping of exotic animals within city limits.
It passed the law in 2003 after Carlton's neighbours complained he was keeping a Siberian tiger in his backyard.
Carlton's animals were in the news in 2002 when one of the immense cats escaped from its enclosure in a motel parking lot in Fort St. John. Shows with the cats at shopping malls also prompted protests.
Capri said B.C. Environment Minister Barry Penner should include exotic animals in his review of changes to the Wildlife Act.
Right now, it's up to each municipality to come up with its own bylaws, allowing exotic animal owners to "hopscotch" from one municipality to another to get around the rules, she said.
In February, Vancouver City Council changed its animal control bylaw to ban exotic and wild animals from being kept or sold.
© The Vancouver Province 2007