Montgomery County Bar Association
Bar Bulletin
June 2020

Before Netflix, Terps Take On Tigers In Captivity

By Carson Barylak and Kenneth Vogel

Before Netflix’s Tiger King gripped viewers nationwide and overtook social media discussions, officials in Montgomery County, Maryland recognized the inherent danger of exotic animal displays and updated county and city codes accordingly.

Animals used for entertainment and profit, including those exhibited in circuses and other traveling shows, are subjected to cruel and well-documented “training” practices, physical abuse, and confinement in extremely small enclosures devoid of enrichment.  These animals are otherwise denied proper care. In addition to harming the animals used for display, traveling shows might place people at risk by bringing dangerous, wild animals into close-proximity with the public. Big cats and other deadly animals commonly used in such displays can harm people through both by direct, physical injury and by the transmission of zoonotic diseases.  

Acknowledging these dangers, the Gaithersburg City Council approved an ordinance in February 2020 to prohibit the exhibition of exotic animals in traveling acts, and to extend the restriction to dangerous species such as tigers, lions, bears, chimpanzees and elephants (Gaithersburg, Md. Mun. Code § 4-101). With the support of the City’s offices of Neighborhood Services and Animal Services, the ordinance passed the Council by a 3-2 vote. While Takoma Park led municipal efforts to eliminate circus cruelty in Maryland, banning the keeping of certain exotic animals for performances decades ago, Gaithersburg is emblematic of a modern wave of circus restrictions. 

In late 2017, the Montgomery County Council took a similar step to limit the exploitation of exotic animals countywide—becoming the first county in Maryland to take such a stand. Enacting a measure to prohibit the use of exotic animals like tigers (as well as certain other dangerous mammals and reptiles) in traveling shows or circuses (Montgomery Cnty. Mun. Code § 5-204), county officials acknowledged changing public perceptions about the humane treatment of animals, as well as the critical importance of protecting constituents from dangerous wild animals. Moreover, Council Members recognized that circuses and other traveling shows have evolving business models and can in fact succeed without hazardous wildlife displays. 

Notably, although restricting the display of dangerous exotic animals might seem intuitive to some of us—after all, Montgomery County residents widely supported the Council’s 2017 measure—efforts to better protect animals and communities from the dangers of traveling shows have not been as successful elsewhere in Maryland. In the same year, a Baltimore County Council bill was withdrawn in the face of circus industry opposition. This outcome further reinforces the importance of the steps taken in Montgomery County, which is now the state’s leader in protecting circus animals. 

These local measures highlight the role of municipalities as trailblazers in advancing animal protection and management policies. In this regard, they are serving as Justice Brandeis’s proverbial “laboratories of democracy,” implementing progressive measures to address citizens’ growing demands for improved treatment of non-human animals, changing preferences and attention to personal safety, and acknowledgment that at least some communities may feel that consumer behavior should reflect its social costs. This city- and county-level progress is driven by gaps in state- and federal-level regulatory frameworks and, in turn, drives improvements to those higher-level systems. 

The Gaithersburg City measure was necessary in part because the Montgomery County code exempts the county fairgrounds, which are located in Gaithersburg, explicitly acknowledging the City’s authority to determine how best to regulate exotic animals there. Thanks to the City Council’s action, dangerous wildlife will not be on display at this year’s county fair.  

Montgomery County, in turn, took action to address what some see as a loophole in state law concerning exhibition of dangerous exotic animals in traveling shows. Specifically, the state’s restrictions on the possession and display of dangerous exotic animals exempt circuses that hold a federal exhibitor license and which remain within Maryland for fewer than ten days. Because traveling circuses regularly cross state lines, such a restriction—though advanced relative to those of many other states, thanks to a careful 2014 update (Md. Code Ann., Crim. Law §10-621)—does not guarantee Montgomery County residents that potentially deadly, sometimes imperiled, and frequently inhumanely managed exotic animals will not under any circumstances be brought to their community for public shows. The state legislature, in turn, tightened its own standards for possession and display of big cats and other dangerous, wild animals in part to address lax and poorly enforced standards at the federal level.  

Local policy reforms like those established in Montgomery County in recent years have set the stage for federal legislators to modernize statutes and affecting captive exotic animals nationwide. Congress is now considering the Traveling Exotic Animal and Public Safety Protection Act (TEAPSPA), H.R.2863/S.2121, which would restrict the exploitation of animals in circuses across the U.S.—a critical role for the federal government given the fundamentally interstate nature of traveling circuses.

Montgomery County’s leadership in modernizing policies concerning traveling animal exhibits ensures that animals and communities will be better protected locally.  That message about the importance of such action will be shared far beyond Montgomery County and the City of Gaithersburg. 

Carson Barylak, Esq. is a Campaigns Manager at the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). She works to advance policies protecting wild animals, including animals in captivity.

Kenneth Vogel, Esq. practices business law and civil litigation in Maryland and Washington, DC. He is also the Maryland and DC state representative of Construction Dispute Resolution Services, an international provider of mediation and arbitration services.