Muskingum County Exotic Animals impact on Ownership Regulations

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – On October 18, 2011 Muskingum County, Ohio made international news after a local resident, Terry Thompson, let 50 exotic animals run loose.

Now six years later Muskingum County Sheriff Matt Lutz explained a federal legislation is trying to be introduced in Washington D.C. about ‘Big Cat Ownership’. Sheriff Lutz has made several trips to Washington D.C. and has spoken to the representatives about Muskingum County’s exotic animal incident.

“We’ve done a video, that they now use over in [Washington D.C.,] so that I don’t have to go back and forth as much,” Sheriff Lutz said. “It’s basically just talking about our incident and talking about the importance in the need of what Ohio did and trying to get federal ‘Big Vat Legislation’ to help states that don’t have state legislation’s.”

Sheriff Lutz realizes now that local and state officials knew animals were kept on the Kopchak Road farm. However, no one knew the full extent of how many animals resided there.

“That if there was a farm in Southeastern Ohio, Muskingum County, that could be doing this,” Sheriff Lutz said. “That could have this many animals, how many other places in the state could there be? So I think it basically was a wake up call. I think Ohio did very well on getting things in place to kind of control how many [exotic animals] are here and I think other states have looked at Ohio and kind of tried to start copying what [Ohio] is doing.”

Fortunately no other state has seen an exotic animal incident like Muskingum County, however, Sheriff Lutz did mention that rules and regulations are still needed for in case incidents like this happen.

Henry County, Georgia actually had a similar incident happen when a Tiger was loose on September 6, 2017 and according to CBS46 law enforcement was forced to shoot upon locating the Tiger.

“That’s another instance where one exotic animal was loose, and it was in the news,” Sheriff Lutz said. “So there is still a need for having some guidelines and restrictions out there. Hopefully for the states that don’t have something in place, then the ‘Federal Big Cat Legislation’ can get introduced and passed.”