Cat Owners Say Killings Like Waco Prosecutor Considers Charges Against Pair; ‘They’re Murderers,’ Man Says Of Deputies
The owners of an exotic animal farm, where 18 lions were shot after some of them had escaped last week, have likened the shootings to the FBI raid on the Branch Davidians at Waco.
“They went in and killed the lions to save them,” said Dotti Martin, who owns the lions and wolves of Ligertown with her husband, Robert Fieber.
A neighbor alerted the Bannock County sheriff’s office after he saw a female lion stalking his animals the night of Sept. 20. He shot that lion, and sheriff’s deputies shot the others because of the threat to this small tourist community. A nearby elementary school had to be shut down.
“They’re murderers, and they ought to be hung,” Fieber told the Deseret News, which reported the comments in a copyright story Wednesday.
“We are terrorized because we have exotic animals. We’ve been given the finger by neighbors, harassed, you name it,” Fieber said. “I’m totally fed up. I’m so damn bitter. This is the United States of America, not Nazi Germany.”
Fieber says the killing should have ended after three lions were dead: the one at the neighbor’s, another that attacked him and Martin when they arrived home and a third shortly after the second.
Instead, 18 of the Ligertown - which gets its name from the breeding of lions and tigers - cats were killed. Over the weekend, 27 were taken to a reserve in California. Dozens of wolf-dog hybrids, certified as dogs, were taken to Idaho Falls.
U.S. Humane Society officials called the compound, which was littered with feces, bones and other debris, inhumane. The cages were shabbily put together and insecure, they said.
Fieber and Martin went to the hospital after the attack Sept. 20, and when they returned, their compound was surrounded by deputies who would not allow them to enter the property.
By Tuesday, they had not yet been allowed to return.
The Bannock County prosecutor is considering charges against the couple.
Fieber and Martin are staying with friends in nearby McCammon. They depend on donations for clothing, food and rides to the hospital three times a day. Fieber said this ordeal is killing him.
“I was never allowed to see which animals were dead,” he said, tears welling in his eyes. “I was never allowed any due process of law. Why do we have the Constitution? People had better start worrying.”
Authorities said Martin and Fieber refused to tell them how many lions, tigers and ligers were inside Ligertown to begin with.
But the couple said they pleaded to be allowed to help and were told “to stay away or we’d be arrested or worse,” Fieber said. They also insist the cats were not vicious.
“We’ve minded our own business; we’ve tried to be good citizens,” Martin said. “We just want to be left alone.”
Martin and Fieber moved with their animals to Lava Hot Springs several years ago after tangling with officials over their animals in Oregon and north-central Idaho.