Your Vancouver Province
Tragic tiger mauling highlights need for exotic-pet controls
The Province
Published: Wednesday, May 16, 2007

It is beyond reason that the provincial government in B.C. is currently powerless to exercise control over exotic animal species and who is allowed to keep them.

Had there been appropriate regulations in place, the tragic death last week of 32-year-old Tanya Dumstrey-Soos might well have been avoided.

The young woman was killed when a tiger kept on a ranch near 100 Mile House in the B.C.

Interior swiped her with its paw through its cage. The animal has since been put down.

The SPCA had earlier expressed concerns about tigers at the ranch and had wanted to remove them.

In the absence of clear legal guidelines, however, no action had been taken.

Since the fatal mauling, there has been an outcry from various concerned groups demanding a ban on the sale and possession of exotic pets.

Some caution is necessary here. We don't advocate giving politicians the power over what citizens can or cannot do, unless there is a demonstrable and urgent need to do so.

In the case of lions, tigers and other exotics, however, the present legislation is clearly inadequate, at all levels of government, to properly protect people from possible harm.

We agree with Paul Springate of the Rainforest Reptile Refuge in Surrey that change should start in Ottawa, with the imposition of tighter controls on the importation of exotics into the country.

At the provincial level, changes are urgently needed either to the B.C. Wildlife Act or the

Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act that would identify what are "exotic" species and spell out precisely the appropriate measures required to control them.

Municipalities currently regulate the sale of some animals and can take steps themselves, as Vancouver has done, to prohibit dealing in animals such as lions and tigers.

No doubt the owners of such exotic beasts will claim they are perfectly safe and that there is no need for regulation.

But wild animals are unpredictable by nature, as the death of Dumstrey-Soos demonstrates.

There is also the question of what motivates people to keep such animals in the first place, other than as an opportunity to show off.

As a society, we have come a long way from ogling wild beasts penned in dank cages in concrete zoos. Surely, our new sensibilities should be appalled at the very notion of such proud creatures being hauled from their natural habitat to amuse a few misguided humans.