The Lion, the Keeper and the Dealer

BrianD3

Anyone see it - just been on on BBC1 about an hour ago. A documentary on the (botched) implementation of Dangerous Wild Animals legislation in Northern Ireland. One of the most bizarre things I've ever seen.

mydarkstar

I saw the last half of it but still don't quite know what was happening in it. Can't get my head around it - the keeper was meant to be taking care of the lions but when they got put down he tried to make a profit out of out??

The Artist

missed the first 10 mins of it.
Crikey all those animals wow.
reptiles,poisoness snakes,you name it.
They guy with all the tattoos(face) keeps all kinds of snakes and loves them,brilliant.
It seem that the owners really did care for these animals and reptiles.
I didnt catch what was all about either?
Somethig to do with the licences being too dear and owners cant afford it.

BrianD3

It was about the introduction of the Dangerous Wild Animals Act in NI. Basically this legislation had been in in for years in GB but never made it to NI until 2006. Result was there was no licensing or regulation of exotic pets so you needed a licence to own a dog but needed nothing to own a tiger :eek:

The first part of the programme was mainly about the pre DWA Act situation and about owners and their exotic pets. Crocodiles in the bathroom, big cats in enclosures in the back garden of semi-d houses. Dangerous snakes in the garden shed. One fella loved his pets so much that he would sample their food before he'd deem it fit for their consumption - so he would eat maggots, crickets etc. also there was an implication that he was eating live mice as well :eek:

The 2nd part of the programme was about the shambolic implementation of the Act. The gov department responsible brought in contractors to look after seized animals. The USPCA was involved in someway as well. But then accusations and rumours started that the contractors had put down some lions and cut the heads off to sell them. The lion bodies were dug up - no heads on them, apparently buried elsewhere on the site. The contractors were evicted from the site by USPCA and during the eviction a bailiff was run over with a Transit van. The contractor, gov dept and USPCA were all accusing each other of various things, claiming ownership of the heads etc. Somebody said that the decomposing lion heads ended up in the boot of a civil servant's car:eek:

Demonique

A guy was run over on camera

There's a post on the programme on exotic enthusiasts, people are not happy with the biased way the programme was presented

http://z4.invisionfree.com/Exotic_Enthusiasts/index.php?showtopic=3357&st=0&#entry3978591

SCI

The guy with the tattoo's on his face seemed to be the only descent
guy on the program.

There's another discussion on the program here as well.
http://reptile-community.com/smf/index.php?topic=1786.0

The scary part is the Rep of Ireland now in the same position as NI was in
were there are no regulations on dangerous animals. My understanding
is there are places in Dublin were you can't have a dog but you
can keep a rattle snake,don't get me wrong there nothing wrong
with people keeping them but there's some nutters out there
shouldn't be aloud out never mined keep a venomous snake. I
wonder how many people up here moved there animals to the south
when they thought there animals would be taken off them when
the DWA was introduced in N.I.