**** There was a acase in
I THINK it
was NY or NJ? It was soemthignout that way and i read this a
logn time ago
so forgive me.... but it was where a guy beat a rat to death in
his yard and
was taken to court over it. The case was thrown out because
the idea was a
man should be able to use whatever means desired to rid ones property of
vermin.
---------------------------------------------------------------
That may or may not have happened in NJ, I don't recall the case. But what
I will tell you is that things are definitely different here now. A case
that comes to mind is the following:
A homeowner ran into a problem with squirrels nesting in her attic. She did
not want to harm the squirrels, but they were destroying her insulation.
She decided to contract a service that uses "hav-a-hart" (humane traps) to
capture and relocate the squirrels. The service contract was for a
technician to come and place the traps and then return daily to check them
and relocate any "prisoners". Day 2 of the traps being out yielded one
capture. The squirrel must have been captured after the woman went to work
but before she got home. When she arrived home and saw the squirrel, she
called for the service to come get the little guy. Needless to say that one
of her neighbors called the police and reported her for animal cruelty.
Regardless of the woman's intentions, she was fined $2000.00 and found
guilty of animal cruelty. It seems that our fine state has enacted a law
that makes it almost impossible to humanely relocate animals. The law
states that the animal must be removed from the trap within an hour of
capture. Lovely thought, but not very realistic as most people cannot sit
at home all day and wait for an animal to get caught. Yet, it is perfectly
legal for someone to hire an exterminator to come and "dispose" of the
creature using methods such as poison gas, lethal injection, or actual gun
if necessary. Go figure!
Pamela (wondering how the politicians keep getting elected year
after year)
