Read the original article at waow.com here.
Controversy in Wausau over what pet you are allowed to have.
City leaders cancelled a meeting scheduled for Monday night to talk about what they consider are “exotic animals”.
The cancelled meeting’s agenda stated the reason the Public Health and Safety Committee is taking up the issue is because of an incident several months back when a pet fox got loose and bit an officer.
Now with the new list of banned animals the city has come up with, owners like Joe Challoner are outraged.
“They are going to have to turn over their animals to be killed, perfectly healthy animals will have to be killed for nonsense,” said Challoner.
Challoner is a reptile breeder in Rudolph but he tells News 9 the possibility of the ordinance passing will have a huge impact on his business.
“Anyone that lives in Wausau could be a potential costumer of mine that basically wipes out my costumer base here,” he said.
Challoner even owns one of the reptiles on the possible banned list.
He has a 10 feet reticulated python named Rapunzel.
“They are doing a ban on constrictors and what they don’t understand is that all snakes are either constrictors or venomous so basically this will ban every single snake,” he said.
Challoner said he has had reptiles all his life, for him his reptiles provide the same slithering care that a four legged animal would.
City leaders tell News 9 the ordinance will be discussed in the next meeting on Feb.18 at 5 p.m. and the public is welcome to put in their opinion.
If the ordinance is passed, leaders said there will be some changes to it’s original form.
The full list of the animals banned are below:
- All venomous animals, reptiles including rear-fang snakes, arachnids and insects.
- Bears.
- Bees, wasps, hornets except honey bees kept in compliance with section 8.08.011 of this code.
- Bison.
- Camelids (llama,alpaca,camel).
- Canids (wolf,coyotes,foxes) except domesticated dogs.
- Cervids (white-tailed deer, elk, antelope, moose).
- Constrictor snakes six feet in length or more.
- Crocodilians (alligators, crocodiles).
- Dasypodidae (anteaters,sloths, armadillos)
- Elephants.
- Felids (lions,tigers,cougars,cheetahs) except domesticated cats.
- Game cocks and other fighting birds.
- Hippopotomi
- Hyenas.
- Marsupials (kangaroos, opossums) except sugar gliders.
- Mustelids (skunks, otters, badgers) except ferrets.
- Nonhuman primates and prosimians ( chimpanzees, monkeys).
- Ostriches.
- Prairie dogs.
- Rhinoceroses
