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By all accounts, Terry Thompson kept the tigers, bears, monkeys and other exotic and dangerous wild animals as pets, and he insisted they were happier on his 73-acre (29-hectare) patch of land in rural Ohio than in zoos.And as recently as 2008, Thompson said publicly he would never endanger his own animals or his human neighbours by failing to secure them and care for them."I don't let my animals run loose," he told the Zanesville Times-Recorder newspaper."I'm not going to put anyone else, including myself and my wife, in danger or put my animals at risk. I take extreme precautions with them and with people who come here."That sentiment apparently went by the wayside on Tuesday, when the eccentric Vietnam veteran, gun enthusiast and pilot cut the fences and opened the gates of the cages at his private menagerie, then shot himself to death as the animals fled.