According to a recent report, Ontario is going to review regulations governing exotic pets owned within the territory. The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services and Ministry Natural Resources declared on Tuesday that they would generate a working group in order to observe the existing structure and find out if any alteration requires to be made.
Relevant Ministries of Ontario took the decision of review the laws after they got the news of the tragic incident of New Brunswick. It is reported that an African rock python weighed 45 kilogram had broken away from the glass enclosure of the apartment located above Reptile Ocean in Campbellton, New Brunswick. The python killed two kids aged four and six respectively. This dreadful incident occurred last week, when Connor was sleeping with his sister Noah Barthe.
In order to avoid such heartbreaking incident in their province, the trio Ministries of Ontario have decided to examine their laws and stated that to the government the well-being and safety of all the citizens of Ontario is of utmost importance. In the announcement, the Ontario Government seek suggestion from chief stakeholders that include municipalities and ask them to report back the drawbacks and the implication that would enable the government to take proper measure for modifying the laws.
Animal welfare groups have argued for stronger regulations for a long period as laws governing exotic pets widely vary around Canada. Last week, in an interview, the executive director of Zoocheck Canada, Rob Laidlaw, informed that there is many exotic animals that arrive in the province and in most of the cases the purposes are entirely unregulated. He also added that existing laws of Ontario are designed in a way to shield for native species and prohibit their possession.
According to Chad Drouillard, the owner of Chad’s Exotics in La Salle, Ontario opines that near about 90 percent of people want to keep an exotic pet are completely ignorant of their municipality’s regulations. From his 30 years of experiences in pet industry, he found that numerous individuals have various questions regarding the matter. He suggested them to contact their municipality instead of taking consult of expertise personalities. He also added that he would gladly accept if the government entirely prohibited snakes that are longer that 2.5-meter and poisonous or venomous animals.
As informed by the reliable source, the Town of Essex located just southeast of Windsor is one of the municipalities that ban exotic pets recently. According to the law of the town that was passed in December last year, inhabitants of the city are not allowed to keep any poisonous animals. Moreover, the animals that are cited in the Control List of the Canadian Wildlife Service of Environment Canada, and the animals that cause any type of hazardous threat to other domestic and farm animals and human beings as well as to the neighboring eco-system.
However, if any citizen of Essex presently owns an exotic animal, the person can continue to do so until the death of the pets by registering the pet with the town by providing an annual charge of $25.
