Hastings County asked to lobby Ontario on exotic animal rules

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Hastings County leaders are making another request of the Ontario government to license zoos and to impose restrictions on the possession, use and breeding of non-native animals.

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County councillors are scheduled to vote Thursday whether to approve a special resolution making the request.

The resolution notes the hazards posted by the keeping of such animals to human and animal safety.

It comes four years after a small zoo sprang up near Maynooth in Hastings Highlands, north of Bancroft.

The county responded in 2021 by drafting a bylaw template for municipalities in the hope it would guard against similar operations and the potential risks they pose.

That same year, the county passed a special resolution asking the federal and provincial governments to create similar legislation.

“I don’t think anything has actually changed yet,” county planning director Justin Harrow said Monday.

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“I know the province has been looking at it.”

He said this resolution focuses on provincial legislation because that is the goal of a campaign underway by Zoocheck Inc. and World Animal Protection.

Hastings Highlands Mayor Tony Fitzgerald welcomed the latest attempt, recalling his township’s experience with the animal issue.

“This is something that hit us – kinda gobsmacked us in the face – a couple of years back, when somebody showed up and started setting up a roadside zoo in Hastings Highlands, and we were not prepared to deal with it – not even a little bit,” Fitzgerald said during the Sept. 17 meeting of the county’s planning committee.

He said there was insufficient provincial legislation and, at the time, no municipal rules governing exotic animals.

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“We were very much thrown under the bus and struggled with it.

“I strongly each member municipality to have a look at your rules, because these things can jump up and bite you, and you don’t see them coming. And you have absolutely no rules to deal with them,” Fitzgerald said.

“Ontario is the only province in Canada that does not have such legislation,” county director Harrow wrote in his monthly committee report.

“The province ‘downloaded’ the responsibility to municipalities a number of years ago (circa 2001) through the Municipal Act and without provincial legislation in place, regulating and managing exotic animals falls to municipalities,” he explained.

While “municipalities generally have the tools” to manage development related to the animals, Harrow wrote, “there are still gaps in existing legislation that allow the keeping of exotic animals without any oversight.”

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Implementing the county template or another bylaw doesn’t address all of those gaps, Harrow added. Without provincial regulations, even municipalities with their own bylaws are facing more “challenges from unregulated zoo-type facilities.”

The Association of Municipalities of Ontario, the Association of Municipal Managers, Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario, and the Municipal Law Enforcement Officers’ Association have each supported a campaign by World Animal Protection and Zoocheck for regulations of non-native or “exotic” animals and roadside zoos. They have sent letters to Ontario’s solicitor general and the minister of natural resources and forestry.

World Animal Protection, formerly the World Society for the Protection of Animals, is a global organization dedicated to keeping wild animals in the wild by addressing the commercial wildlife trade and industrial farming, its website states.

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“With approximately 50 zoos, wildlife displays, and zoo-type exhibits housing wild animals, many of which can be classified as roadside zoos, Ontario has the most captive wildlife operations in all of Canada,” reads a briefing note from the group.

“This province is the only major jurisdiction that has not yet comprehensively addressed issues related to the keeping of wild animals, whether it is for pets or for zoos.”

The note adds the job has instead been downloaded to municipalities, and they “often lack the expertise and/or resources” to deal with potentially dangerous animals.

Current regulations “are not working” reads the note.

It estimates 1,000 to 2,000 are currently in roadside zoos and “tens of thousands” kept in private homes.

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Zoocheck Inc., meanwhile, is a Gravenhurst-based wildlife-protection charity.

In an August letter to county council, Zoocheck executive director Rob Laidlaw reported more than 20 municipalities had endorsed the same resolution coming before Hastings County council; the campaign aims to get 100 on board.

Harrow said some county municipalities already had bylaws in place when county staff created their template. Others, including Hastings Highlands, have since enacted bylaws, but a list was not available.

Council is to vote Thursday on the resolution during members’ monthly meeting at the county’s headquarters in Belleville. The open session begins at 10 a.m.

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