The claws are coming out over plans by a property owner to bring up to five tigers into a west Malibu residential area.
Residents in the Deer Creek Road area off Pacific Coast Highway in Ventura County are furious about an application by Wild Ones, LLC to house between two and five rare white Bengal tigers on 19 acres at 1107 Pacific View Road. The tigers would be used for filming purposes in the entertainment industry.
“It’s a ridiculous idea,” said Dan Bercu, a nearby property owner who has young children. “[The tigers] have a huge roaming zone. They’re dangerous and a harmful precedent for our residential neighborhood.”
Property owners Irena Hauser and Sophia Kryszek seek a conditional use permit to build three animal enclosures and an arena, enclosed by an eight-foot-high, 2,338-foot perimeter fence that would encompass 7.16 acres on the property. The project description says the enclosures will be an eight-foot high chain-link fence with chain-link roofs. The arena chain-link will be 16-feet high and will be 556-feet long, containing 0.31 acres.
Wild Ones will only allow the large felines to enter and leave the property by vehicle through a number of gates, according to the application, and no employees other than the property owners and their family will be on the property.
Hauser and Kryszek, who are sisters, say that safety is their top priority and that they sent letters to each of their neighbors after local television news stations ran stories last week. Once their neighbors learn more about the precautions being taken, Hauser and Kryszek believe they will see that the tigers do not pose a threat.
“We are professional trainers with over 15 years of experience and we have never, nor would we ever, put anyone in a position we did not know was safe and secure,” Hauser and Kryszek wrote in an email to The Malibu Times Monday. “We have implemented this system for years and it has never failed us. We are confident that once residents know all the facts about us and our tigers, they will realize that the local bobcats, coyotes, and mountain lions which are not contained and roam freely, pose a much greater threat to residents, their families and their pets.”
But Bercu said there is nothing he and other property owners could hear that would convince them that a facility is safe enough to prevent the possibility of an escape.
“All it takes is one latch is left open and one door left open, one instance of human error,” Bercu said. “Those things happen… We’re not going to take that chance with kids in our neighborhood.”
A fact sheet on the website for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) lists incidents between captive big cats and humans in the United States. Since 1990, 21 humans have been killed and 250 injured, according to the list, while 125 cats have been killed.
Hauser and Kryszek have until Sept. 4 to respond to the county’s resource management agency after a neighbor complained that some of the buildings already on the property—a residence, guesthouse, garage, and barn—all appear to be living structures, rather than the uses they are listed for.
Brian Baca, a manager in the Commercial and Industrial Permits Section of the Ventura County Planning Division, said the county will respond to any comments received.
“We will respond to the comments we get,” he said.
The property is zoned open space, which is the only zoning that permits the housing of wild animals in Ventura County, according to Hauser and Kryszek.
Baca said currently the planning department sees no reason not to approve the permit, which he said Wild Ones will use to bring two tigers onto the hillside land.
When the public review period concludes, Baca said Wild Ones’ application will go before the Ventura County Planning Commission.
“The planning commission will look at all the evidence and facts and decide whether to approve,” he said. “It is likely to be two months from now before we go to the planning commission.