THUNDER BAY – City staff are, once again, not recommending allowing ball pythons as an exotic pet.
Administration will present their report to city council on Tuesday, saying they do not support exempting ball pythons from the list of restricted animals based on several considerations, including the animal’s welfare, environmental impacts, public safety concerns, and by-law enforcement challenges.
“We were fairly clear in the comments that our recommendation would remain the same,” Kristyn Lovato-Day, policy and research analyst for corporate services, told Newswatch in an interview.
Back in October, the Finance and Administration Standing Committee heard a deputation requesting the small African snake be removed from the municipality’s list of restricted animals.
Mayor Ken Boshcoff said he’d use his strong mayor powers to stop that from happening, and city staff said they would not change their recommendation.
The current staff report hasn’t changed much since October.
Lovato-Day said “a little bit of information” was added to the report, as well as a letter sent by the World Animal Protection Canada, an animal welfare non-profit organization, which supports Boshcoff and administration’s position on the exemption.
“It is one of the main tenets of why we are not recommending an exemption at this time. Part of it is for the protection of wildlife. There is still an exotic pet market with a trade with questionable standards there. While there are some, like ball pythons and animals and wildlife in general, that are bred in captivity, the standards for that are also not strong in Ontario,” she said.
In a letter sent to council, Erin Ryan, wildlife campaign manager, said if Ontario’s pet trade isn’t closely monitored, the ball pythons could become endangered.
“Their populations are declining in the wild due to poaching and exploitation for the exotic pet trade. There is no way for a prospective owner to verify whether a seller is directly or indirectly exploiting wild populations. There is also a risk that granting this exemption would contribute to normalizing exotic pet ownership and risk further exacerbating wildlife trade issues,” Ryan wrote.
Lovato-Day said the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Ontario SPCA) and Humane Society Northwest Animal Centre, “has very little in the way of vet care here or any specialists for exotic animals.”
If a snake escaped or the owner could not care for them, the Thunder Bay shelter system would not have the room to house them, nor does the city have specialized veterinarians who could care for their well-being.
She said the Ontario SPCA has also taken a formal stance against exotic animals as pets.
“Animals are frequently surrendered or abandoned when owners can’t meet their animals’ needs. There are a few exotic animal rescues and sanctuaries in Canada. These few specialized facilities — and even larger animal shelters — are already overwhelmed and lack capacity for new intakes,” Ryan said.
“Without anywhere else to turn to, overwhelmed owners may resort to abandoning their pet in the wild. Situations just like this have resulted in the spread of invasive species like red-eared sliders and American bullfrogs in Canada. If they’re not able to survive, the abandoned animals will suffer until they eventually succumb to starvation, disease or exposure.”
The likelihood of ball pythons surviving in Northwestern Ontario’s cold climate is low, but if one did manage to survive in the wild, said Lovato-Day, the ball python would be considered an invasive species.
The ball python could disrupt the natural environment by out-competing other species’ food supply for local animals and take over local wildlife’s habitats, she said.
In the wild, ball pythons live in a contiguous area of Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. No populations are listed elsewhere in the world, including other warm climates.
The organization does not categorize ball pythons as threatened in its 2020 Red List of Threatened Species, the most recent year the species was assessed. Ball pythons are listed as near-threatened, which means the population does not fit the criteria for vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered species but is close to qualifying as vulnerable or likely to qualify in the future.
