Group promotes federal exotic pet bill in Ohio

Local animal experts were in Columbus Tuesday pushing for a bill being heard by the U.S. House of Representatives that would ban new exotic pet purchases.

The bill would ban people from buying new big cats as pets and then create a registry for people who already have them so law enforcement knows where they are.

Tim Harrison of Outreach for Animals and several Oakwood police officers were a part of Tuesday’s effort to find a U.S. Senate sponsor of the proposal.

A similar bill was passed into law in Ohio in September 2012, nearly a year after tigers, lions, bears and more animals were released from a Zanesville animal preserve.

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