Former State Senator pushes for state-wide animal abuse registry

Reporter: Olivia Jean Writer: Bryanna Sterzenbach
Published: Updated:

We are hearing from a former Florida Senator who said Erick Canoura could’ve been stopped before he came to Lee County.

Canoura was arrested in Lee County after leaving five dogs in inches of muddy water mixed with feces.

He was arrested in 2021 for the same charges in Miami-Dade County after 31 dogs were found in deplorable condition in his possession. He can no longer own pets in Miami-Dade County.

Canoura was allowed to have dogs in Lee County partly because no state-wide animal abuse registry exists. Currently, there are no proposed bills or serious talks about bringing a state-wide animal abuse registry to the state of Florida.

Canoura faces animal abuse charges in the two counties. Back in 2012, former Florida Senator, Mike Fasano, sponsored Dexter’s Law, named after a kitten badly beaten and almost killed by a Florida woman. The bill had an important goal.

“Keeping people who have been abusive to animals in the past from ever owning another animal by having a registry, a state-wide registry, so you could look into that registry, whether it be the county or city before a person could purchase an animal or even adopt an animal,” Fasano said.

The key element in this bill is the state-wide registry. It was filed but died in agriculture.

Fasano, an animal lover himself, believes Canoura’s actions in Lee County could’ve been preventable if there was a state-wide animal abuser registry.

“They would have looked it up real found out very quickly that he was already forbidden from having an animal in Miami Dade and that he was an abuser,” Fasano said.

Fasano hopes current politicians will bring the initiative back up in Tallahassee.

LCSO told WINK News that a state-wide animal abuse registry is something they have and will continue to support.

From January 1 until September 18, there were 1885 animal calls for service for LCSO. Eight LCSO felony arrests have been made so far this year.

An animal abuse registry is not common in Florida. Lee and Collier counties have one, with Collier’s put in place this year. Charlotte County was in the process of developing an online registry for animal cruelty offenders in September 2018 but experienced delays.

Only four other counties have a list of people who are not allowed to own pets. That’s Miami-Dade County, where Canoura was first caught, as well as Pasco, Marion, and Volusia Counties.

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