The Ohio Department of Natural Resources will let a temporary ban on exotic-pet ownership implemented by outgoing Gov. Ted Strickland expire this week.

The agency announced the decision Monday, with officials saying they do not have the legal authority to enforce the prohibitions that were part of Strickland’s executive order.

Instead, ODNR officials said they will meet with the Humane Society of the United States and other groups and accept public comments to determine a next step — possibly recommendations that state lawmakers would need to approve.

“I think we’re going to be very aggressive on this,” Scott Zody, assistant ODNR director, told reporters, in response to a question about the time frame for developing those recommendations. “I don’t think we want to let this sit around for very long because ... there is a high degree of interest in this issue.”

He added, “My hope would be that this would be a matter of months, not a matter of years.”

In one of his last official actions before leaving office, Strickland signed an emergency executive order banning new ownership of wild or exotic animals, including alligators, bears, gray wolves and pythons.

Under the terms of the order, existing owners would be allowed to keep their animals, though they would have to register with the state by May 1 of this year and annually thereafter.

The executive order also gave the ODNR the authority to develop rules prohibiting the private ownership of wild animals.

The executive order stemmed from an agreement he helped to broker between the Humane Society of the United States and major farm groups to keep an animal- welfare issue off the November ballot.

Kasich was supportive of the order initially, telling reporters at the time: “We don’t want exotic animals here where somebody’s bringing something in and then some neighbor gets hurt. So we’ll look at it. It sounds reasonable, but let me just take a look at it. I would be inclined to say we should continue it.”

But the new administration slowed the rules-filing process earlier this year after hearing concerns from business owners, and ODNR officials have not been enforcing the ban, which will expire Wednesday.

Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive officer of the Humane Society of the United States, called the ODNR decision a disappointing but temporary setback.

“We do remain hopeful that a new rule will be issued to achieve the same purposes — and we hope it’s done in rapid fashion,” he said. Pacelle said his group still has more than 500,000 signatures on petitions in hand that it could use to place the exotic animal and other animal-welfare issues before voters.

http://www.vindy.com/news/2011/apr/0...ets-to-expire/