Last updated on 2011.08.03
...and water buffalo, pandas, sharks....
The Madison City Commission takes up further animal regulations Monday night. Ordinance 1510 includes new prohibitions on the possession or wild or dangerous animals within city limits.
We call on two expert biologists to review the list of forbidden fauna:
The Tasmanian devil is not included in the ordinance, although the extinct Tasmanian wolf is. Also banned: beavers, badgers, puma, ocelot, wolverines (warning to Red Dawn fans!), skunks, and squirrels. Llamas are out, but not alpacas. Caribou and reindeer are out, but not the marauding moose.
The rules include exceptions for Dakota State University (thus saving the university's secret chimpanzee hacker program) and licensed circus events. Whether that exception clears the way for the Chamber of Commerce to bring the petting zoo with its llamas and camels (also prohibited) back for Crazy Days next year is unclear.
The draft animal restrictions include several other goodies, such as...
- Section 5-151: a requirement that all dog and cat owners obtain electronic identification devices from the city. Say what? Are we implanting microchips? GPS transponders? (If so, I move to amend that we include one on the Lake Area Improvement Corporation executive director as well, so we can follow what he's doing to create jobs in Madison.)
- Section 5-152: a requirement that our dog or cat get rabies shots (amazingly, Madison doesn't already have this).
- Section 5-125: a pooper-scooper requirement!
Review Ordinance 1510 in the city agenda packet (Update: or here, as the city psots the proposed ordinance separately as it seeks public input), and see what local legal surprises you can find. And llama and hippo owners, I can point you to some lovely parcels of land outside city limits here at Lake Herman.
I don't live in town, so my group of spayed and neutered felines and one doggie aren't affected. But what is the reasoning for mandating that pet owners go to the expense of a chip for their pets older than three months? Is the city going to provide this chip or whatever since the owners are supposed to get it thru the city? What am I missing here?
Sioux Falls Ordinance Section 7-3.c.5 requires vicious animals to be injected with ID microchips. Madison's proposed ordinance requires electronic IDs for all dogs and cats over three months... but not turtles.
Brookings city code Sec. 14-156 requires typical tags for dogs and cats, but no mention of electronic IDs. Sec 14-157 requires the tag be attached to the collar, so that would appear to exclude injected chips as fulfillment of the ID requirement.
This stuff with dogs in this town are rediculous. Example the new vicious animal ordinace is not getting enforced. My daughter was bitten by a dog and I am told it is a civil matter and to take it to court they did not do anything other than talk to the owner. Now with cut backs are they going to finally purhcase a chip reader. My dogs have not been chipped due to the fact the city never had a reader.
Sounds like the council critters need injected ID micro-chip tags.
Too bad about the beavers.
These proposed regulations disallow two popular local food practices that other cities have found to work just fine,beekeeping and backyard chickens. As a matter of fact, just this morning I bought honey that came from hives just a few blocks away from my place. And I've never seen bees in my neighborhood. And while chickens are not mentioned by name, they are domestic fowl, so presumably forbidden.
What about animal rescue and rehabilitation folks? Unless they're university professors, they would appear to be SOL. It also seems that falconry would be allowed, but not the keeping of wildife education animals. Within city limits elsewhere, I've seen some wonderful rescued owls that couldn't survive being relased back into the world but were great for taking into schools to teach kids about nature. Unless the City has already had a problem with wildlife rescue and education, why forbid people from doing it?
Sounds like they just cut and pasted an ordinance from somewhere else and put Madison in for that city. has this even been an issue????
Heather, my sympathies. The vicious animal ordinance passed in May after the pit bull attack on Kathy Lindsay includes the following:
"Any animal involved in an unprovoked attack, which results in serious injury to any human, shall be impounded and if unable to be captured, any law enforcement officer is authorized to destroy the animal to prevent further endangerment to human life. Any animal impounded for an unprovoked attack, which results in injury to any human, shall be euthanized."
That doesn't look like a civil matter to me. But I wonder how the city defines "serious injury."
I'm curious about 5-89 - Picketing. The way it is written, that would prevent me from putting my dog on a chain behind my house to let it do its business, as I don't have 125 feet between my house and either of my neighbors' houses. That's almost 50% wider than my lot's width, and there are many older sections of town where the lots are even smaller. I can't imagine there are too many places in town where a dog owner wouldn't be in violation of the policy...
You know, James, you appear to have a valid concern. 5-89 applies to "any domestic animal" which at the end of its chain would be within 125 feet of another dwelling. That would be a problem in most neighborhoods!