Lawmakers in New Hampshire have voted down a proposal to make the state a bit more like a zoo. The Republican-sponsored House Bill 1325 would've allowed residents to keep animals such as red-tailed kangaroos, small-tailed monkeys, foxes, otters, skunks, and raccoons as pets without the need for a permit from the Fish & Game Department, per the New Hampshire Bulletin. But the idea was "too wild" for members of a House committee, who rejected the bill Tuesday with a unanimous vote, per WMUR. State Rep. Peter Bixby, a Democrat, said the animals listed "are essentially wild animals, and they don't have the domestication bred into them that is necessary to make them viable as pets."
State Rep. Catherine Sofikitis, a fellow Democrat, noted kangaroos "can beat the crap out of somebody," while state Rep. Judy Aron, a Republican, said she'd spoken to someone with experience living alongside short-tailed monkeys in Southeast Asia, who described the animals as "like perpetually vicious and angry and petulant 2-year-olds." "There's no reasoning with them," said Aron. "There's no training them." State Rep. Barbara Comtois, another Republican, said the bill's inclusion of the term "companion animal" was a major concern because it meant that in the event of a disaster, the pets "would have to be housed." All this echoed the Humane Society's take on the bill as "crazy," per WMUR. (More New Hampshire stories.)
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