Efforts to Maintain Menagerie Go Forward

THOUSAND OAKS — Getting approval to do anything on your property, like adding a room, is complicated enough. But getting permission to raise rattlesnakes and alligators in the suburbs is a challenge.

Just ask Jim and Gina Brockett, of Brockett’s Film Fauna, which for two decades has supplied everything from poisonous spiders and big reptiles to mounds of maggots for Hollywood.

Since moving from Pasadena to Carlisle Canyon in eastern Ventura County several years ago, the Brocketts have spent $8,000 in fees and much of their free time soliciting the support of neighbors in hopes of keeping their menagerie of what the city calls “inherently dangerous” animals.

Today, their efforts probably will be rewarded when their application goes before the Planning Commission. It has been recommended for approval by staff, no neighbors have complained, and several friends, neighbors and animal experts have offered their support.

In the meantime, the process has forced the Brocketts to put a full listing of their inventory of about 200 animals (not counting bugs) into the public record.

The case planner for the county noted in his report that all the animal cages on site meet or exceed state and federal standards, and several neighbors attest in letters to the planning division that the couple keep their animals clean and treat them lovingly.