Ohio Town Under Siege After Dozens Of Wild Animals Are Set Loose From Preserve

What In All The Hells??? Owner Of Ohio Animal Farm Sets Lions, Tigers And Bears Loose Before Killing Himself

- By Bossip Staff

“Once daybreak hits here, we’re going back in to get an accountability of how many animals have been put down, how many animals are still penned up,” the sheriff told NBC.

The preserve in Zanesville, about 55 miles east of Columbus, had lions, tigers, cheetahs, wolves, giraffes, camels and bears. Police said bears and wolves were among the escaped animals that were killed and there were multiple sightings of exotic animals along a nearby highway.

Lutz called the animals “mature, very big, aggressive” but said a caretaker told authorities the animals had been fed on Monday.

Tuesday night, more than 50 law enforcement officials – including sheriff’s deputies, highway patrol officers, police officers and officers from the state Division of Wildlife – patrolled the 40-acre farm and the surrounding areas in cars and trucks, often in rainy downpours. Lutz said they were concerned about big cats and bears hiding in the dark and in trees.

Neighbor Danielle White, whose father’s property abuts the animal preserve, said she didn’t see loose animals this time but did in 2006, when a lion escaped.

“It’s always been a fear of mine knowing (the preserve’s owner) had all those animals,” she said. “I have kids. I’ve heard a male lion roar all night.”

Oh heeeeeeeeell no!

Lutz said his office started getting phone calls at about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday that wild animals were loose just west of Zanesville on a road that runs under Interstate 70.

He said four deputies with assault rifles in a pickup truck went to the animal farm, where they found the owner Thompson dead and all the animal cage doors open.

He wouldn’t say how Thompson died but said several aggressive animals were near his body when deputies arrived and had to be shot.

Thompson, who lived on the property, had orangutans and chimps in his home, but those were still in their cages, Lutz said.

The deputies, who saw many other animals standing outside their cages and others that had escaped past the fencing surrounding the property, began shooting them on sight.

Staffers from the Columbus Zoo went to the scene, hoping to tranquilize and capture the animals after daybreak Wednesday. The zoo’s director emeritus, TV host Jack Hanna, said that was something that could not be done in the dark.

“You cannot tranquilize an animal like this, a bear or a leopard or a tiger (at nighttime),” Hanna told ABC’s “Good Morning America on Wednesday. “If you do that, the animal gets very excited, it goes and hides, and then we have his (Lutz’s) officer in danger of losing their life, and other people.”

Lutz said his main concern was protecting the public in the rural area, where homes sit on large lots of sometimes 10 acres.

White, the preserve’s neighbor, said Thompson had been in legal trouble, and police said he had gotten out of jail recently.

“He was in hot water because of the animals, because of permits, and (the animals) escaping all the time,” White said. A few weeks ago, she said, she had to avoid some camels which were grazing on the side of a freeway.

Doesn’t that sound like some isht out of Stephen King’s “The Stand”?? How does it even come to this?

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