Well, one report speculated that he was furious at the community and police and this was his final act of revenge before suicide.
Yes, but they’ve also killed animals that weren’t predators, and have state their intentions to kill the monkey still at large. So the decision to kill was not entirely related to the size or dietary choice of the animals involved.
I’m not blaming them for the ones they tried to tranquilize, but had to terminate if something went wrong. I’m blaming them for their explicit stance that recapture would be too risky and many of the animals had to be shot pre-emptively.
See above. At the start of this story, officials were quoted as saying that “it’s too risky to try to tranquilize them.” For the cases where they did try, good for them.
Careful, I’ve been advised cars can’t kill.
I just read that one of the last two animals remaining at large, a monkey, “will be killed” when found because he or she is “carrying a disease.” Elsewhere in the article, it’s mentioned that the monkey has herpes.
Look, if they’re going to kill every primate in Ohio who’s carrying herpes, they’re going to have to go back and get a LOT more bullets.
Well, I think he (she?) feels that I unfairly harshed on him for not knowing that simian herpes is kind of a big deal, and that is an excellent point, because I only learned that myself yesterday. “Herpes” doesn’t sound like such a big deal until you find out that, for example, a primate researcher died less than two months after getting hit in the eye with feces from a herpes-infected monkey. (And man, that’s a hell of a way to go, innit?)
I was kinda surprised none of the animals ate Thompson, what with him laying out in the open and reeking of fresh blood. Now they’re reporting that one of the large cats, probably a Bengal, did take a crack at his head.
Right. For example, a news story simply stating “The woman was beheaded by authorities to prevent anyone from looking at her face,” is a very different story if we’re talking about a Saudi woman in 2011…or Medusa in Greek mythology, isn’t it?
Especially if the press is playing up the danger involved in the story. “…and a monkey infected with an encephalitis-causing virus deadly to humans!” makes better copy than “some monkey with herpes.”
The mythology geek in me feels compelled to point out that Medusa was not killed to protect anyone. She was on a remote island that Perseus had to search out; her existence endangered no one except persons who sought her out.
An easier explanation is that someone wanted the guy dead and came on the property just before feeding time and opened all the cages.
Thompson comes out of the house with a bucket of chicken parts, encounters multiple loose big cats in the driveway, realizes he’s a goner and chooses to shoot himself with his sidearm (remember he’s a gun fanatic that just got out of prison for illegal guns). Seconds later, sure enough, he is attacked by one of the cats, but by then, he’s already dead by his own hand.
For those stil following along, six animals were saved. They are: 1 brown bear, 2 Celebes macaques, and 3 leopards (including one black leopard). Those animals were transported to the Columbus Zoo and are being observed/treated by zoo staff.
Six animals were saved in this entire debacle, and are currently being cared for at the Columbus Zoo. Well, the widow of the animals’ former owner says that they are her property and she wants them back. The Ohio Department of Agriculture has taken the unusual step of quarantining the animals to prevent them from being moved from the zoo, presumably as a temporary stopgap measure while the legislature gets something passed so that they can legally stop the widow from getting the animals. At least, that is my interpretation of what’s going on.
What I heard was that he’d just been ordered to rehome his animals because he didn’t have a permit (or it got revoked), and he seems to have figured that if HE can’t have them, no one else can either.
Though the update about his widow trying to get them back makes me think I may have been misinformed. Either that, or she gets this year’s Total Chutzpa award.
