However, I also know that it is not fair to the animals and it is my moral obligation not to keep these animals as my personal pets. Many, many people do not share this same sentiment. A search on Google or YouTube for videos or stories of people owning and proudly displaying their exotic pets is growing increasingly in number. I’ve seen videos of adorable animals ranging from monkeys to wild cats to even sloths! Most of these people are very proud of their pets and their ownership of them, and through personal experience I have noticed that they will defend to the death their right to own an exotic animal and that there is nothing wrong with it. Well, “wrong” is subjective, but here I will outline the range of arguments I’ve come across and my counter points to them. If it isn’t clear, my stance on exotic pets is that it should not be legal to keep them or breed them unless in very specific circumstances that I’ll address later. It is my firm belief that wild animals belong in the wild, and not in our homes. My reasons why will be covered in the following arguments.
Argument: A wild animal’s life in captivity is much, much longer than their life span in the wild, where they can and will be hunted by poachers, game hunters, or struck by a car, die of starvation, eaten, or become displaced by habitat loss. In captivity they will be fed well, receive tender loving care, will be able to play until its heart’s content, and live a full, happy, safe life. Places you can find this argument: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64sHRMb5ydc&feature=related, http://repticzone.com/forums/Exotics/messages/1768170.html, http://www.exoticcatz.com/dontban.html, and several YouTube and random forum comments.
Response: Of course an animal’s life in captivity will be longer than in the wild. In the best of care, they’re provided with a nutritious meal every day, fresh water, enrichment, love, attention, and everything you could ask for. Let me put you into this scenario: When you’re born, you are taken into a lovely room with all the toys you could imagine. You’re fed three square meals a day, someone comes in to play with you, and best of all, you live in a hospital, so when you get sick, you’ll be taken care of immediately and won’t have to worry about dying of disease. All you’ll be sacrificing is being able to leave that room, make any friends, or wandering the outside world to socialize, get a job, or do exciting things like ride a bike, bungee jump, get into a fight, or fall in love and have a family. Without all of these risks, you’ll live to a nice, ripe old age of 90 or higher! Man oh man, you’d be set.
Before you start accusing me of anthropomorphizing, just think about it. Sure, this exact situation won’t apply to most animals, but it’s the same basic concept. Animals do run into serious risks such as poaching, as shown in the graphic video linked above. But that is a risk that we all face in different situations. As humans, we are at risk of getting into a car accident, being murdered, skinning our knees, breaking an arm, choking, being seriously injured or dying in a plane/train/car crash, getting lost in the woods or desert and dehydrating or starving… you get the picture. As for starvation or being eaten, that’s nature! If animals weren’t eaten, then several other animals would die. Starvation is a horrible, horrible way to die, but this is how animals evolved. It’s brutal, but it’s survival of the fittest. I’m not saying that we should leave animals to die of starvation if we can help it, but this is what happens in nature. I once read letters to the editor by angry readers of the magazine National Geographic that a photographer did not intervene in the process of wolves slowly killing their elk prey. The brutality of this act shocked many readers and made others very angry that the photographer allowed this animal to suffer. It sounds cold, and as an animal lover myself, it’s hard to say, but that is how nature works. Although nature can be amazingly beautiful at times, it is also unforgiving and brutal. You have to accept that this is how these animals lived for millennia before humans came into the picture.
Some of these animals have amazingly huge territories in the wild. Mountain lions, for instance, defend ranges of 30-125 miles or more (some sites record up to 600 miles for males!). Within this territory, the animal is allowed to run unhindered, climb mountains, find a mate and reproduce, defend its territory, and most of all, hunt. Most animals kept in captivity are repressed in their natural behavior to hunt live prey. I have met or talked to many people who feed their exotic pets raw chicken, beef, pork, and in some cases, extremely unnatural foods (one raccoon owner fed her raccoon a diet of gummy worms and bubble gum). Very, very rarely, if ever, will an owner allow their pet tiger kill a deer, a bobcat kill a rabbit, etc. Snake owners are the biggest exceptions, but that doesn’t make it OK for them to keep the animals as pets for several other reasons.
Now consider the life of a zoo animal. Their physical needs are attended to, but rarely their emotional ones. Felines kept in a pet environment get to experience the comfort of a good snuggle, love and affection, and the type of personal care that even the most renowned zoo could never provide. And yes, they do appreciate it. Servals are incredibly affectionate when raised properly in a pet environment, and bond very strongly to humans.
This, my friends, is called anthropomorphizing. How do we know what the “emotional needs” are of a wild cat? They seem to be doing fine in the wild without someone to “love” them. Why do we think that it’s in the cat’s best interest to be loved, snuggle, and receive affection? We, as humans, have this deep desire to pet things and love them, and there is nothing wrong with that. But it’s our desire, and not necessarily that of wild animals who are not humans. Of course they appreciate it; the sensation of being petted is hard to turn down. Anyone being cared for and fed without doing any real work is going to appreciate it. But that doesn’t justify us keeping them in captivity. As wild animals, they evolved to do this on their own.
Counterargument: But by keeping these animals in captivity in responsible homes, we are conserving the species from extinction. These animals will be gone forever if we don’t do something about it.
Response: You’re right. We DO need to do something about it. However, keeping these animals as pets is not the answer. The purchase of exotic animals can become quite expensive. http://www.exoticpetsforsale.com lists a single lemur for $5,500; a pair of spotted skunks for $1,400; and a kudu with a hefty price tag of $10,000. There are pages and pages and pages of exotic animals for sale ranging from muntjac deer to skunks to servals to coati. Just looking at this website or even doing a simple Google search confirms that exotic animals are more business to some people than pets. Some (possibly many) exotic animal owners will breed their pets in order to sell to others. At those prices, it can become very lucrative. As exotic animals are becoming more popular due to advocacy by exotic animal groups or owners such as UAPPEAL, Rexano Exotics, Joe “Exotic” Schreibvogel, USZA, exoticcatz.com and many others, the appeal of owning an exotic animal grows stronger and easier to achieve. With all of this awareness, people could really put their money where their mouth is, and instead of buying a $3,000 animal, could donate to a wildlife conservation program such as the World Wildlife Fund, the Sierra Club, the American Zoological Association, Greenpeace, Defenders of Wildlife, and many, many other organizations that use their funds to protect wildlife habitat, raise awareness on endangered species, support reintroduction of animals into the wild through captive breeding programs, rehabilitate injured and orphaned animals, fund programs to police poaching and illegal hunting, and other causes that work towards the future of wildlife and nature. Is exotic pet ownership really about the preservation of species, or for selfish reasons?
Argument: Exotic pets can be just as dangerous as domesticated pets. No small exotic animal has ever killed a human, but dogs kill people every year. Furthermore, exotic pets can be just as loving and affectionate as regular house pets.
Response: This is difficult to address. The above argument is true. There are far more documented cases of dogs attacking and killing people – especially children – every year. I admit that the media has a habit of reporting attacks on people by exotic pets more than attacks by domestic dogs or cats. They’re bigger news items. However, it’s not a news item that exotic pets, big or small, can be more unpredictable and vicious than their domestic counterparts because of their wild nature. Just as certain breeds of dogs are more predisposed to be aggressive than other breeds, exotic pets maintain genes that retain natural instincts necessary to survive. This is hard to prove scientifically, but with cases such as a chimpanzee attacking a woman, in which the chimp was reported to be “like a child to [the owner]” and was probably well cared for; the infamous tiger attack during a Siegfried and Roy show where it was reported that Roy slept with the tigers for the first year of their life, conditioning them to be affectionate to him; and several other “pet” animal attacks, including snakes, African servals, and other exotics, it shows that even with a life of love, caring, and attention, that like all animals, can be unpredictable, and because most exotic pets are generally larger or more “equipped” than domestic animals (claws, teeth, weight, etc), can do a lot more damage.
The American Pet Products Manufacturers Association’s (APPMA) 2009 National Pet Owners Survey (NPOS) showed that 77.5 million dogs were owned by Americans. It is difficult to find updated statistics on how many people own exotic pets, but in 2004 it was 18.2 million, up from 16.8 million in 2002 according to the NPOS. If the 8% increase trend continues into 2010, we can expect 22.9 million exotic pets in the US at present. That is significantly less than the amount of dogs currently owned. With the nearly 250% difference in dog ownership, there is an obvious trend in numbers that dog attacks will be higher than exotic animal attacks.
Counterargument: Small cats, such as servals, bobcats, and lynx, have not been reported to kill anyone but other domestic pets have.
Response: Possibly. However, just because they haven’t killed anyone doesn’t mean they’re not capable of doing serious damage. As mentioned previously, wild animals come with more “equipment” necessary for survival, and even with small cats this includes very sharp claws, powerful teeth, and amazing strength. They are bigger than your typical house cat, and people with regular cats already know how bad they can be. Some people will declaw or even remove the front canine teeth of their exotic cats, and I find this to be extremely cruel. If you can’t handle the potential damage this animal can do, you should not have one, especially if you have children. Declawing is only benefiting you, and not the animal you claim to love. Some accidents occur even during play time, when the animal has no intention of harming you, but in the excitement of play, can inadvertently claw you badly or bite down too hard. The point is that of course, all pets are capable of doing damage to their owners, but exotic pets are even more capable of increasing that damage. A lot of people love having raccoons as pets. However, here are some articles of interest: http://wlsam.com/Article.asp?spid=&id=2132990 http://www.rockdalecitizen.com/news/headlines/109080229.html. The first is about a raccoon that had to be euthanized because it mauled a baby because it was probably “attracted to the baby’s headband.” The second is a pair of pet raccoons that seriously injured a baby in a crib. I’m sure both owners thought these animals were safe because they raised them personally. I don’t think the raccoons purposely attacked the babies for malicious reasons, but it’s just an indication of how unpredictable and dangerous they can be. Most cats or dogs would not crawl into a baby’s crib and start gnawing on it.
Another article of interest: Man killed by pet deer tells of a man who raised a red stag as a fawn and was then gored to death by the deer. Deer aren't even predatory, yet this deer's hormones and instincts came into play and he gored the man since the man did not have antlers of his own to fight back. Talk about unpredictable and dangerous.
The potential for zoonotic diseases is also something that should be taken into extreme consideration, especially those exotic pet owners that take orphaned wild animals. Wild animals can carry rabies, parvovirus or distemper that can be transmitted to your pets, all kinds of parasites and worms, and some even potentially fatal parasitic larva. All of these are things you should never expose to the people you love.
Argument: Some people claim that because some exotic pet owners cannot properly care for the animals and abuse, neglect, and abandon them, that all exotic pet owners should be liable for this and pay the price for it.
Response: I never use this argument because I’m admittedly on the side of exotic pet owners on this one. Just like regular house pets, exotic pets such as bears, tigers, and ungulates are poorly cared for and given improper diets either because of a lack of knowledge, money, and/or the inability to care for it once it grows out of the small cub/baby stage. Most exotic pet owners will buy a cute baby animal to take home and then not realize the immense financial toll it can take on them. A tiger will eat up to 25 pounds of meat a day. Since tigers can live in captivity for up to 20 years, the costs of this can add up astronomically. Add this to the cost of proper caging, vet bills, enrichment, and other necessary things and you can see why sanctuaries aren’t necessarily rolling in money. The ones that can afford all this and give their animals amazing care deserve kudos. This also applies to domestic animals; there are several people who abuse, torture, and starve animals and yet the rest of us who are responsible pet owners are not facing pressure on owning our own pets.
However, a point must be raised here. Because of the increasing appeal of exotic animals as pets, more inexperienced people are keeping them as pets and giving others a bad name. Look at the amount of once people-owned pythons taking over in Florida, or the toll Asian carp or other goldfish are doing to our ecosystems. These serious problems came from people who could no longer care for the pets, so they “set them free” to wreak havoc on native animals. Now, obviously, if someone let their pet tiger free it wouldn’t quite be the same experience. Because people can’t simply let their chimpanzee or lion roam free once they get too big to care for, they are often shoved into small cages outside and the cycle of neglect and abuse begins. This can be solved or seriously reduced in one of two ways:
1. Strict regulations on the ownership of exotic animals. This includes requiring all exotic owners to have a license for each animal they own, and in addition, a separate, harder-to-obtain license to breed them, with fees attached to each. Some states do not require such licenses and unfortunately, it appears that these states are where the most deplorable conditions are discovered.
2. The banning of all exotic animals. This is, of course, a very extreme measure, and agreeably very unfair for responsible pet owners. It’s also a large gray area. What do you define as an exotic animal? Of course there are the big cats, the bears, the monkeys, and others, but an exotic pet is defined by most people as animals that have not gone through the process of domestication, such as our common house cats, dogs, ferrets, rabbits, parakeets, rodents such as gerbils and rats, livestock, etc. With that definition, exotic pets can and do include chinchillas, all snakes, lizards, frogs, sugar gliders, parrots, turtles, tarantulas, millipedes, cockroaches, scorpions, and other invertebrates, most fish, and many, many others that you can find in every day pet stores. So where do we draw the line? The big exotic pets get the most attention because they’re the most attractive and the most dangerous. Some groups would have you believe that all animals should be liberated, including cats and dogs, so there is no gray area. Do we have a right to pick and choose when it comes to morals? This is why exotic animal bans are difficult to legislate and enforce and that banning, in my opinion, is a poor method of dealing with neglectful owners.
While I could go on for at least 4 more pages, this article is already long enough, and has taken me several months to write to find legitimate sources and arguments. I appreciate input from people who have helped me find creative ways to present counterarguments to people who are pro-exotic pets.
I am very open to criticism on this blog post as I hope to update it with more relevant and/or stronger arguments. If you have any input, either pro-exotic pets or anti-exotic pets, by all means, send me an e-mail or post in the comments your thoughts. All I ask is that you keep it mature, as little profane as possible, and not an attack on me or any other posters.
