Phoenix Woman Had Lion, Bobcats at Home

[Champ]

PHOENIX - A Phoenix woman who kept a mountain lion and other wild animals in her home has been charged with child abuse and endangerment.

Michelle Carole Gierke, 32, admitted keeping a mountain lion, two bobcats and an African serval at her west Phoenix home.

She didn't have a state permit for the animals, and she sometimes left her small children alone with the animals.

Gierke acknowledged to officers that if the animals had gotten out, they would have been a danger to her neighbors. Her home is just a block from a school.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=816&ncid=816&e=7&u=/ap/20041217/ap_on_fe_st/house_cats

[CanuckAmok]

1. re: headline: that's some midwife she had there!

n/t

[blondeatlast]

2. Snarf.

Damn you, that was a good one.

[arwalden]

4. My First Thoughts Too... Well, That And...

imagining what conception must have been like.

[CanuckAmok]

9. do you know the origin of the "rabbit in the hat" trick, Mr. Walden?

"England during the reign of King George I (1660-1727) was full of oddities, shams, and charlatans. King George himself was a bit of an oddity, never bothering to learn English and keeping his wife imprisoned for 32 years. But for sheer strangeness, nothing surpassed the infamous case of Mary Toft of Godalming and her rabbit babies..."

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/mary_toft.html

http://www.celluloid-wisdom.com/pw/index.php?/weblog/entry/15548/

And it was this series of events which gave rise to the popularity of magicians and comediand pulling rabbits out of thin air.

[LoZoccolo]

3. I've wondered for some time why you can't have a cougar.

They're only as big as certain dogs that you are allowed to have, certainly smaller than rottweilers, and they'd probably be a lot smarter too. Like they might actually be smart enough to know that people are friendly, the way cats are, rather than attack your guests and neighbors the way dogs do.

[skygazer]

6. It's like they say

Size doesn't matter. What matters is they're a non domesticated carnivore.

They should have charged her with animal abuse as well. I hate it when people try to keep wild critters as if they were the same as animals that have been domesticated over centuries.

[LoZoccolo]

7. Yeah but dogs are /hardly/ domesticated.

I really don't think that people should be allowed to keep most of them.

<- Three-time bite victim. Doberman, saint bernard, irish setter.

[skygazer]

8. Sorry you've been bitten

You must taste very good. Still, if a mountain lion bit you, you probably wouldn't be here to post about it!

Seriously, though, I agree that a lot of people shouldn't have dogs but not because the dogs are dangerous - it's generally because the people are morans and have little or no control over them.

[Cuban_Liberal]

5. There should be a blanket offense of 'criminal stupidity'!

I've always thought that...

:eyes: