Associated Press, June 20, 2001 10:12:00
TUCSON - Jake the cat lost his life tangling with a coyote near his southern Arizona home. Now his owner wants the Arizona Game and Fish Department to compensate him.
Jake's owner, Wallace Burford, is seeking $328.21, the amount it cost him to cremate Jake.
Burford said the department should either post signs warning people about roaming wildlife, feed the animals so they're not hungry enough to seek out pets, or reimburse people whose pets are killed.
"They are responsible for all the wild game, but they don't seem to think so," said Burford, 75, whose cat was killed three days after Burford moved to Marana, just north of Tucson, from Lynchburg, Va.
Burford said he will make his case in Phoenix on Friday at a public meeting of the Game and Fish Commission after appealing an earlier decision not to pay him.
"I feel very sorry that he lost his pet, because I know how attached you get to a pet, and to have them killed is terrible," said Gerry Perry, regional supervisor for Game and Fish in Tucson. "But it seems in this day and age, people are always looking for someone that is responsible when stuff like this happens."
Perry said no one has ever requested compensation for a pet killed by wild animals in his 10 years with the department.
"We're talking about wild animals here," Perry said. "They're wild, and the courts have long held that no agency is responsible for acts of wildlife."
Burford doesn't plan to take his appeal past Friday, but he wants to start a campaign so newcomers whose pets are killed are compensated through money from hunting and fishing licenses.
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http://www.predatormasters.com
TUCSON - Jake the cat lost his life tangling with a coyote near his southern Arizona home. Now his owner wants the Arizona Game and Fish Department to compensate him.
Jake's owner, Wallace Burford, is seeking $328.21, the amount it cost him to cremate Jake.
Burford said the department should either post signs warning people about roaming wildlife, feed the animals so they're not hungry enough to seek out pets, or reimburse people whose pets are killed.
"They are responsible for all the wild game, but they don't seem to think so," said Burford, 75, whose cat was killed three days after Burford moved to Marana, just north of Tucson, from Lynchburg, Va.
Burford said he will make his case in Phoenix on Friday at a public meeting of the Game and Fish Commission after appealing an earlier decision not to pay him.
"I feel very sorry that he lost his pet, because I know how attached you get to a pet, and to have them killed is terrible," said Gerry Perry, regional supervisor for Game and Fish in Tucson. "But it seems in this day and age, people are always looking for someone that is responsible when stuff like this happens."
Perry said no one has ever requested compensation for a pet killed by wild animals in his 10 years with the department.
"We're talking about wild animals here," Perry said. "They're wild, and the courts have long held that no agency is responsible for acts of wildlife."
Burford doesn't plan to take his appeal past Friday, but he wants to start a campaign so newcomers whose pets are killed are compensated through money from hunting and fishing licenses.
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http://www.predatormasters.com
