City considers lowering fee for animal exhibitions

Denise Cardinal

Thursday, Jan. 29, 1998 | 10:38 a.m.

For Kari Bagnall, life is literally a zoo.

On her one-acre plot in northwest Las Vegas, she has: 17 monkeys, a couple of wolves, two cougars, two tigers, three emu, two pot-bellied pigs, goats, lambs, chickens and one baby wallaby.

She's head of Jungle Friends, a nonprofit organization that exhibits animals at local schools. Though she's brought her animals to several schools within Clark County -- she hasn't been to many schools within the city of Las Vegas.

The reason: the city's $100 per-animal exhibition fee is too expensive.

"I have no money," she said. "There's no way for me to even try to come up with the money. I get no funding from the state or anywhere except what's generated from programs, birthday parties and stuff like that."

The county, in comparison, only charges $25 per exhibit -- regardless of the size and duration.

But that could soon change -- the city introduced an ordinance earlier this week that would charge only $25 per wild animal exhibit as well.

"These people were putting on charitable events and were asking for waivers of the fee," said Mike Sheldon, director of the city's detention and enforcement division. "It was becoming cumbersome for one thing and often is an unfair burden for those people who weren't making any money displaying animals."

The city also lowered its fee for the keeping of wild animals as pets. So rather than having to fork over $100 for keeping a ferret, Las Vegas residents only have to pay $25.

The majority of wild animals people keep as pets in Las Vegas are hybrid wolves, snakes more than 6 feet long and ferrets.

Casinos in Clark County that keep wild animals already pay for the county permit to keep the animals. None of the casinos within the city's limits have wild animals.

In addition to a fee, owners of wild animals must pass an inspection from the city's animal control unit.

"We usually don't have any problems with the wild animals because we're very strict on our inspections," said Roger Van Ort, an animal control officer.

Though Bagnall is happy to have the fee lowered, she thinks the law would be even better if nonprofit groups and education exhibitions like hers weren't required to pay any fee.

"Even the library, which wanted to pay me gas money to come over with an animal for their story time, couldn't afford to pay the fee," said Bagnall. "We're not doing a big show at The Mirage making millions."

The ordinance will be discussed at Monday's recommending committee meeting where it will be heard by City Councilmen Larry Brown and Gary Reese.