The owner of three tigers and a hyena he’d been keeping on a Wainfleet property before he was told he was contravening a bylaw hopes they’ll someday be reunited, but it won’t happen in the rural township in Ontario’s Niagara Region.
Zohaib Masood was keeping two adult tigers, a juvenile tiger and a hyena on someone else’s property on Highway 3. Masood said he was unaware of the township’s exotic animal bylaw when he brought them there a year ago.
Masood said he was told he was breaking the bylaw, but he asked for an exemption. His efforts to keep his animals began last fall.
But township officials said the animals posed too great of a risk to people.
“Residents have said they truly do not want to see this here,” said Wainfleet Mayor Brian Grant. “There’s too much public risk and too [many] people worrying what’s going to happen.”
Masood said he acquired the adult tigers — Aspen and Jagger — from someone else who needed to find a home for them as they grew into powerful adults. The juvenile tiger’s name is Atlas and the hyena is Marilyn.
“We took them to save them,” he told Wainfleet council this month when he requested the exemption from the bylaw.
Masood told council he didn’t know the name of the owner of the property where the animals were living, but told CBC he got the individual’s permission before he brought them there.
Last November, Ontario’s chief animal welfare inspector seized the four-month-old juvenile tiger and the hyena over what that office said was inadequate care of the animals. The same day, an animal welfare services inspector and veterinarian visited Masood’s property.
In January, Masood appealed the decision to seize the two animals, disputing the idea they were in distress and asking for them to be returned to him. The hearing was before the Ontario Animal Care Review Board, chaired by vice-chair Tassia Poynter.
But Poynter dismissed the appeal, ruling March 9 it was necessary for the animal welfare inspector to keep the animals in care “to alleviate their distress” caused by a lack of appropriate food and water at the Wainfleet property.
The baby tiger and the hyena became property of the province, according to a letter to Masood in January from Bailey Wintermute, regional supervisor with the Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General’s Animal Welfare Services division.
Masood removed the remaining animals — the two adult tigers — to meet a March 16 deadline imposed by the township to get them out of Wainfleet.
He declined to disclose where he put the tigers, saying only that they’re in Canada.
“I just don’t want anybody pestering them. You just don’t know about people.”
Masood said the tigers are being well cared for at their new home.
“They’re in a safe place. The people who have them are educated. They know [how] to handle big cats.”
Lindsay Earl, manager of community and development services for the township, said Masood wanted to establish a tiger sanctuary or rehabilitation facility for those animals. But Earl said, in a report to township council, that Masood’s request for an exemption didn’t include any proposal, operational plan or supporting documentation related to establishing a wildlife sanctuary.
She recommended that the exemption request be denied because the animals posed a risk to people.
“Tigers are apex predators with substantial strength and unpredictable behaviour, even when raised or housed in captivity,” Earl said.
Likewise, hyenas are “wild, predatory species with powerful bite force, territorial behaviour and demonstrated capacity to cause serious injury or death to humans and other animals.”
The township doesn’t have the expertise or resources to respond in the event one of the animals escape, said Earl, who noted no provincial system is in place that regulates or has oversight of private tiger sanctuaries.
Township Coun. Sherri Van Vliet said having the powerful predators remain in Wainfleet was not possible.
“We have many small children and you’re right on the highway,” she told Masood. “There’s far too much risk to the people who live here.
“Wainfleet is not the place for exotic animals.”
Masood responded to that concern by saying the enclosure had 16-foot fences, and multiple doors would have had to have been opened for them to escape.
He told CBC he’s heartbroken over losing his animals and remains hopeful he’ll be reunited with the adult tigers, and maybe even the juvenile tiger and hyena.
“I miss them dearly. It’s like taking someone’s child. How can you do that?
“This is not right what has happened.”
