I Will at Least Concede That Nobody Needs More Than One Emotional-Support Tiger
You guys, I'm on record as strongly supporting the rights of the disabled, including those who may have a mental or emotional disability that might, in some circumstances, give them a legal right to own and possess an animal where that might not otherwise be the case. But I'm also on record as recognizing that the right is to reasonable accommodation, which necessarily means there will be limits. We talked all about this when that lady tried to bring her emotional-support monkey to court that one time. See Courthouse Deputy: I Need to See Your Monkey'" (May 25, 2017) (though he had already seen it on the X-ray machine). So I'm being consistent when I say there is unlikely to be any set of circumstances in which a person would be entitled to keep more than one tiger as an emotional-support animal.
In fact, one could argue that the number of emotional-support tigers to which one might be entitled is zero. But in any event, less than seven.
So I would not take the case of Karl Mitchell, a 71-year-old Pahrump man (he lives in Pahrump, Nevada, that's not, like, his tribe or something) who was arrested earlier this month on charges of resisting arrest and illegal possession of a gun by a felon. He's entitled to a defense on those charges, of course. I'm just saying his claim that all seven of the Bengal tigers on his property are emotional support animals" will not be supported by me.
Officers entered the property to confiscate the tigers, not because owning a tiger in Nevada is illegal (it doesn't appear to be), but because Mitchell allegedly did not have the permit that Clark County ordinances require for the keeping of any exotic or wild animal." Tigers are definitely on Clark County's list of such animals, along with any other members of the suborder Feliformia (except for Felis catus), and a host of other beasts including monkeys, wolves, badgers, kinkajou, whales, kangaroos, giraffes, zebras, anteaters, and any reptiles that are venomous and/or normally exceed 12 feet in length at maturity. No permit, no tiger(s). [Correction: I am informed that Pahrump is in Nye County, not Clark County. A number of things are legal in Nevada outside Clark County that are illegal within it, so please take that into account in future research.]
The report suggests Mitchell once had the necessary permits. He claimed he once operated a tiger-rescue organization, and the sheriff said they had known for several years" that he had big cats on the property but for the last two years" he had been violating the permit requirement. Authorities visited the property to confiscate the tigers, and arrested Mitchell after he refused to provide keys to the tiger cages," according to the report. I'm not sure that's a crime, but maybe he was arrested for obstruction and then resisted that arrest, hence the charge.
I might also have questions about the handgun charge, since officers found the gun in his bedroom, not near the tiger cages. But maybe the warrant covered the entire property including buildings. After all, it's not impossible that somebody might be keeping a tiger in his or her bedroom, as you've known for, like, 20 years now. See Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Alleging Unlawful Rescue From Tiger" (Aug. 8, 2006). So that's fine.
Mitchell (who was released later that day), apparently floated the emotional-support-tiger claim in a phone interview with the New York Times, saying he was a veteran with PTSD and that a VA doctor had approved of his keeping the seven Bengal tigers as emotional-support animals. He also provided what appeared to be a letter from the doctor," the Times said, but then cruelly failed to post a copy of said letter, apparently because the doctor named in it had not yet responded to a request for comment. At the time of the report, the VA and the Sheriff's Office were looking into the claim but had not yet been able to verify or refute it.
I don't have any information on that, either, but am pretty confident in my opinion that at best the letter might tend to support the keeping of one emotional-support tiger, not seven. And even then it's not likely to hold up. As I said, there are limits to such claims, and the potential risk posed by even the best-trained member of Feliformia cannot be ignored. Cf. Board Seems Reluctant to Allow Tiger Sanctuary in a Tent One Block From the Vegas Strip" (Dec. 7, 2021) and Court: No Tigers in Malibu" (Sept. 25, 2018).
Oh, I forgot to mention that Tiger King" Joe Exotic also makes an appearance in this tale. Mitchell claimed in the interview that three or four" of his tigers had come from Joe Exotic (real name: Joseph Maldonado-Passage, a.k.a. Inmate 26154-017), who can no longer have tigers on account of being in prison for the failed murder-for-hire plot discussed in the Netflix series. Exotic was quick to refute this on social media, however. They did not get their tigers from Joe Exotic," said Joe Exotic, not that it matters where the tigers came from.
I was also going to tell you about the men who were arrested last week for riding horses through a Walmart store in Louisiana, on the grounds that at least one of them claimed his horse was an emotional support animal." That was going to be another example of how a potentially valid legal right will almost always be subject to reasonable limitations, but after reading the report again I don't think this man was being serious. Also, there is one too many bad puns in that report for me to recommend reading it. How many? One.
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