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As the sun rose Wednesday morning over Zanesville, Ohio, Tammy Fatterfield peered out her back window at an indiscernible animal lying motionless beneath bushes and tree shrubs.
She grabbed her camera and zoomed in on the shape. She noticed a little bit of blood.
“When I was able to get a closer look, it was a lion,” Fatterfield told the Star, moments after local authorities removed the dead animal from her property.
The lion was one of 56 exotic beasts freed from Muskingum County Animal Farm after their owner, 62-year-old Terry Thompson, killed himself Tuesday night, Zanesville police said.
Over the next 12 hours, the surrounding area became the grounds for a wild hunting expedition as officers armed with assault rifles stalked and shot cheetahs, wolves, grizzly bears, lions and 18 Bengal tigers, which are an endangered species with fewer than 3,000 left in the wild.
Forty-eight animals were gunned down by local deputies, who had shoot-to-kill orders. A 49th, a grey wolf, was later found dead.
It was a bloodbath one might expect to see on the plains of Africa, not in a small Ohio city, seven hours south of Toronto.
At a news conference Wednesday, County Sheriff Matt Lutz called the animals mature and aggressive.
“We’re not talking about your normal, everyday house cat,” he said.
Police warned nearby residents to stay in their homes and local school districts cancelled classes. The animals were spotted roaming the countryside up to 16 kilometres away from the 18.6-hectare farm.
“It’s like Noah’s Ark, like, wrecking right here in Zanesville, Ohio,” Jack Hanna, a well-known TV personality and former director of the Columbus Zoo, told the Today show. “Noah’s Ark filled with tigers and lions and all leopards and a few monkeys and whatever, and it crashes here and all of a sudden they’re out there.”
Six surviving animals, including a grizzly bear, were taken to the Columbus Zoo.
Sam Kopchak, a 64-year-old retired teacher whose property borders Thompson’s property, was one of the first to notice something strange. At 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Kopchak went outside to retrieve his horse and noticed a commotion to the north, on Thompson’s property.
“I looked up there and saw a figure,” he told the Star. “And I said, ‘That is not a horse.’ It was a bear.”
As he quietly corralled his horse back to the barn, he spotted a male lion no more than 10 metres away, resting next to a wire fence.
“He was just sitting there looking at us, and he was huge,” Kopchak said.
Once inside the barn, he called his 84-year-old mother, instructing her to dial 911. Through a window, he witnessed a roaring tiger bounding after a gaggle of horses.
“It was traumatic, but I wasn’t really panicking or anything like that,” Kopchak said. “I’m not saying I wasn’t scared. I knew (Thompson) had animals. I didn’t know he had that many.”
The 911 calls started pouring in around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Lutz said. Deputies drove to the farm, where Thompson lay dead next to open animal cages.
Lutz said the sheriff’s office had received numerous complaints since 2004 about animals at the property.
Thompson was released from federal prison on Sept. 30 after serving a year for possessing unregistered guns, according to media reports.
Animals lingering near the property line were shot immediately. On Wednesday, tractors hauled carcasses scattered around the property to a burial site.
Michael O’Sullivan, executive director of the Humane Society of Canada, condemned the killings. Authorities should have set up perimeter fencing and lured the animals back to their cages with food, he said in a statement to the Star.
“I think the authorities let everyone down,” he said. “They should have shown up with food and expertise, rather than bullets.”
Tagen från- http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1072309
Helt sjukt, jag tycker också att dom borde ha försökt locka dem med mat eller sövt ner dem. Hursomhelts tyckte jag att det här var hemskt men på samma gång väldigt intressant.
xoxo. Amanda
Ibland är jag ganska stolt över att du är min syster och förstår dig på coola saker :)
