By now many of you know about an incredibly bizarre incident involving animals who ran rampant after being released from a private animal reserve near Zanesville, Ohio after one of the owners of the reserve released them and then apparently shot himself. I first heard about it early in the morning soon after it happened and I've had a number of emails about this situation, all of which expressed concern about the fact that as of this writing at least 49 of the animals have been killed, most of them within 1500 feet of their pens, six tranquilized, and one hit by a car. One monkey is still missing.

Ohio is one of about eight states that does not regulate exotic animals. While it's interesting to ponder why numerous exotic animals - wolves, mlonkeys, bengal tigers, bears, leopards - were allowed to be kept on the reserve and why the laws regulating these sorts of situations are nonexistent or pretty weak and the few existing standards rarely enforced, it's also important to know why so many were routinely killed and only a few tranquilized. Why weren't more or all tranquilzed? If they could be shot with a bullet why couldn't they be shot with a tranquilzing dart? And, while these animals roamed around the farmlands in and around Zanesville, there were no reports of any attacks on humans. Indeed, most of the animals didn't leave the general area of what had been their home. Many might have been as scared as some of the local humans.