COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A 26-pound domesticated, declawed bobcat is at the center of a legal fight over whether its owner should be subject to Ohio’s tougher wild animal laws.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources is asking the state Supreme Court to overturn a lower court decision finding that lawmakers failed to put bobcats on the list of wild animals subject to state regulation.
Adam Federer was since 2003 granted a license from the state to keep his bobcat. But in 2014 the state told him he had to get a wild-animal permit from the Department of Agriculture, making his pet subject to strict permitting, caging and care rules dictated by the new law.
Ohio enacted stricter rules after a suicidal man released dozens of wild animals from a farm in 2011.
