Kansas already bans private ownership of tigers, lions, and bears. The reasoning is simple: these animals are dangerous, their needs cannot be met in a private home, and no permit system adequately protects the public or the animals themselves. Kansas got that right. But the state's Dangerous Regulated Animals Act left out some equally dangerous species — and it's time to fix that.

We're calling on the Kansas Legislature to expand the Dangerous Regulated Animals Act to include primates, large constrictor snakes, and wolves.

A chimpanzee is five times stronger than a human. Primates carry diseases transmissible to people, including herpes B, which can be fatal. They are highly social animals that require the company of their own kind, complex environments, and decades of specialized care. No private owner can provide that. The same logic that led Kansas to ban tigers applies directly to chimpanzees, baboons, and other primates — yet they remain legal to own today.

Large constrictor snakes — reticulated pythons, Burmese pythons, anacondas — can exceed 20 feet in length and hundreds of pounds. They have killed their owners and their owners' children. They are not manageable pets, and when they escape, they pose a genuine threat to local wildlife and communities. Kansas bans non-native venomous snakes but leaves these equally dangerous constrictors completely unaddressed.

Wolves and wolf hybrids round out the gap. Unpredictable, powerful, and unsuited to captivity, they are responsible for attacks across the country and belong in the wild — not in backyards.

Primates, large constrictors, and wolves pose the same risks to people and suffer the same harms in captivity as the animals already covered by the law. Expanding the Act will make the one Kansas already started safer and more humane.