Ownership of exotic animals

I'm totally against it. That is what ZOO's are for  (responsible knowledgeable husbandry and captive breeding).
 
Too many times people do it and want to do it...for egotistical reasons..because they think it would be cool, or make them cool, because they want something everyone else doesn't have, etc.
 
IMO if you LOVE, truly love...a wild thing you could NEVER cage it...it's one thing to live out there like Mowgli and have the animals come to your hand because they love and respect you and consider you one of them...and quite another to have an animal come to your hand because a)you feed it b)you are the only source of companionship or activity for it.
 
That's like raising a supermodel and giving her to your son and she "loves" him because he's the ONLY man she thinks exists on the planet. lol...who are you fooling thinking any wild animal would love you, better than it's freedom?
 
Esp predator species...they exist to hunt and cull and maintain wild populations of prey species...not to amuse you or entertain you. They are darned good at it..in fact cats come close to being perfect at it. Imagine being perfect for one thing and only one thing...and never being able to do it? No wonder so many big cats go nuts...3 words for you SIEGFRIED AND ROY.
 
Lastly...the word "pet" in any sentence speaking of captive wildlife is way out of place...they are captive, not pets.

I agree mostly.

However, when done responsibly I think people are allowed to have them. Many of the exotic animal owners' sites I have been on, are as qualified as a zookeeper. I think they are entitled to owning whichever animal they have chosen to keep in captivity.  Most animals will live longer lives, and have better healthcare than wild ones. And endangered species such as tigers, their only hope of surviving is captivity.
 
Im not only talking about the larger animals, either. Animals such as the fennec fox are a completely tameable and containable wild animal. Being that it only is the size of a chihuahua.

I am against it. There is a local petting zoo, that started out with goats and ponnies, and then decided to get tigers, lions, cheetas (sp) I will not go. I will not give them my money. Last year 2 people got bit by their family raised cubs.
 
My mother was at a zoo in Kentucky last week, and their wild cats had all of their teeth filed down. I think thats sick.

For every person that might own them responsibly, there would be five who wouldn't.  Stupidity runs against us.  Most have very specialized needs, and many once people grow tired of them are sold, and often end up on game farms to be shot by the highest bidder.  There are too many cases of attack, and quite a bit of the saving in captivity leads to hybrids.  The zoo near me just got two tiger cubs, both of which are hybrids.  You're not saving a species by breeding it with a different species.  [:@]

Personally I believe snakes over 8 feet, or venemous should be considered very exotic. (Baby red tailed boas ahopuld not be sold in pet shops...[:@]))) Other reptiles with special needs should be evaluated.  Fish with an adult size over 3 feet should also be considered hard to handle.  Large cats should be where they are suppossed to be killing those prey animals we keep considering a menace.  Monkeys definitely not, many carry communicable diseases to humans, and testing isn't always accurate.  If they went to a strictly enforced permit system maybe, but otherwise no I don't think wild animals should be kept as pets...

If you want a fox try to get one of the greys from the domestication experiment in russia.  In only a few generations they ended up with foxes with dog like characteristics, by only breeding the more friendly and less afraid foxes.  (technically they were trying to breed tamer foxes for fur farms, but that didn't pan out as breeding for temperment ruined the coats.) 

I'm not looking really to restrict people who might do the right thing, I'm trying to prevent the stupid from doing the wrong one.  There are hundreds of exotic animals needing shelter because their newness rubbed off.  It's easy to find a large constricting snake for low cost because they aren't actually that interesting once they're eating rabbits...

I have birds and some days I have a hard time seeing them in captivity. I don't think wild animals should be kept as pets.  They are wild. . .not pets.   And, whenever I hear of someone trying to keep them it always ends in disaster for either the animal or themselves or both.  I also am pretty sure it's against the law in most places. 

Also, some animals chance of survival depend on being raised and bred in captivity. 

Yes, but in zoos and wildlife places they do this very carefully.  They know who should be bred and go to great lengths to make sure inbreeding doesn't occur.  It's a big deal and not one that just anyone can do. 

"Most animals will live longer lives, and have better healthcare than wild ones"
 
So what? that is what Nature intended....lol Nature doesn't have a healthplan and her way works pretty darned well when people stay out of it. These animals people are keeping are not endangered because you cannot keep endangered wildlife as a pet. Unless you can 100% REPLICATE in every detail said animals wild life then you have no business keeping it. You's general. I have seen old Lions and Tigers and wild canids, kept alive past their prime and to me it is extremely sad to see. Thier spirit is broken and they feel their loss of dignity in their inability to simply wander off into the wilderness lie down and die with dignity and return to the Earth like the big plan intends.
 
Can you keep a fennec fox in over 90 degrees temps during the day and almost freezing at night, allow it to dig 2 mile tunnels in your backyard and hunt small mice lizards and critters? Can you keep it in a family group of up to 10?  Can you sleep days and be awake all night like it's natural habit would be as they are nocturnal? Can you do that and expect it home every night? Can you allow your male to wander miles in search of a mate and the female to SHRIEK when she is in season and rear as many litters as she can thruout her lifetime as nature planned? Or are you going to spay or neuter it, keep it alone, retrain it against it's instinct to be diurnal, train it not to vocalize becuase the neighbors complain, keep it contained in a home with 4 walls...never allow it to dig much if at all and feed it kibble or food it didn't kill itself?
Just because you CAN tame an animal..does not mean that you have the RIGHT to take that animals wildness from it.
 
In general the larger herbivores are the only ones I can see keeping because their habitat and lifestyle is easily replicated...they graze, wander a bit and reproduce...
 
A tame fox...is a dog...if you like the foxy look there are Finnish Spitz and Shiba, etc.

Dang, I forgot something on what I consider exotic. 

I have two corn snakes, which I don't consider exotic.  They've been captive bred to the point it's hard to find one that will bite, and I swear they would eat anything I put in their feeding boxes.  They are both colors not found in the wild beacuse of extensive captive breeding.  I doubt eaither would survive long in the wild with their lessened bite instincts and calm personalitys. 

I also have a ball python who also will eat just about anything, but has more specific heat and feeding needs, then the corns.  I consider him well on the way to domestic.  He was captive bred, is fairly easy to feed, and not too grouchy.  However, I expect that if let loose where he belongs he wouldn't have too much of a learning curve to surviving on his own. 

On the other hand I have a ribbon snake, likely a wild caught one, who refuses to eat for half the year, will only eat fat head minnows, and is exceedingly not interested and stressed by handling.  I consider him exotic.  And if I could legally do it I would want him returned to where he was collected.  I don't think I'm giving him a fair life, but I don't see giving him to anyone else to also keep in a different glass box as being any nicer.  I bought him before I knew better.  []

I have a cockatiel who is obviously badly bred due to her crossed wings, but who overall seems happy with her large cage and some free flight time.  However, if she had been parent raised that would likely be a different story.  She isn't tame so much due to being domestic as being conditioned at an early age.  As far as surviveability.  If she was correctly proportioned I'd give her a 50/50 shot. 

I have heard of private owners who have some sort of rehab place that takes in exotics. I think thoes are good as long as the people know what they are doing, most zoos will be happy to work with these people and get the animal settled in the right place. I think that if a person wants to own such an animal they should find a job with a zoo or rehab center instead. If they are not quilified to work at such a place then they are not quilified to own one.

I also think most exotics not the large zoo animals but the ones we see in pet shops should not be sold as pets. Yes there are many responsable people out there who know how to care for them but many don't. I've done some fostering for reptiles and have taken in a few unwanted exotic just because people didn't know how to properly care for the thing. I also did some volenteer work at the zoo and found it crazy how many people donate exotics to the zoo because they didn't want them anymore, many had to be euta. because they were in such bad shape, the others were keeped as part of the educationl outreach program that I helped with. I think that there should be some sort of test a person takes before owning shuch a creature to weed out the ones who know almost noting about them. Exotic are not domesticated and it takes more then the basic knowlage of animals to care for them, you can't exspect most exoitcs to be lap animals.

I happen to have a ball python and every time I have to feed him, I tell myself I will never have another.  Snakes are very cool, very adapted animals and while he doesn't know any better, I've come to the conclusion that he shouldn't have to live like this.  He has a nice tank with heat and food on a regular basis, cleanings whenever needed, but he just sits in his little house all day.  I wish they would stop selling any animal other than domesticated animals as pets.  But sadly this won't happen.

ugh, no, people should not be allowed to keep exotic species, IMHO.

I'm against it as well.  A lot of people go on and on about how you can raise a wild animal with people and it will be tame and friendly.  That got me thinking the other day....  what about those human kids who get raised by wild animals like wolves or even packs of dogs?  Sure they fit into the dog society (sortof), but they're often mentally disabled somehow from lack of human contact.  Is that what we're doing to wild animals when we try to tame them?  Hurting them in some way just because we can't see that we're doing it to them because they can't talk?  That doesn't seem fair to me.

My ball and cockatiel were pet store rescues..  Someone got tired of the cockatiel for no apparent reason, and the ball python had a healing cut on his neck from one too many cage escapes.  I actually have a tree frog, leopard gecko and crested gecko from the same problems, people getting tired of them, or injuries making them unsellable, mostly from inadequate caging, or keeping with wrong cagemates.  Basically husbandry issues at a store selling the animals.  [:@]

People dump small exotics all the time.  And I was only dealing with the dumps 3 days a week, and I didn't take home most of the fish or small mammal dumps.  We got everything, hamsters, guinea pigs, rats, finches, tailess baby leopard geckos, larger screamer biting parrots, and every once in a while an illegal rabbit. 

We had one empoyee with an exotics license who used to get alligators, monitors and other illegal reptiles dumped at the store.  Nothing like finding an alligator in a cardboard box in front of the store before it opened.  Zoos and Aquariums everywhere turn away dozens of badly cared for too large exotics very year. 

Like I said before if it stays a reasonable size, has few husbandry requirements, and doens't have a tendency to go cage crazy I don't mind people keeping them, but otherwise leave exotics where they're supposed to be. 

ORIGINAL: mwood322


People dump small exotics all the time.  And I was only dealing with the dumps 3 days a week, and I didn't take home most of the fish or small mammal dumps.  We got everything, hamsters, guinea pigs, rats, finches, tailess baby leopard geckos, larger screamer biting parrots, and every once in a while an illegal rabbit. 

 
These aren't all considered exotics in the sense that they're wild animals being kept as pets.  Pet rats at least have been domesticated for at least 100 years and cannot survive in the wild without humans.  They are VERY different from wild rats.  'Exotic' in my mind means things like tigers, caracals, servals, cooatimundis and other wild animals that have NOT been domesticated.

I think most of you think I support everday people owning them.

***I only support proffessionals***

Whether they are zookeepers or not. Like Xebby mentioned, private rehab owners. 

I'm against it, too.  If you need a *wild animal* fix, try to visit the San Diego Zoo.  The entire zoo, even the giant aviary with a moving stairway, is a natural habitat zoo. It will actually take you 2 or 3 days to cover the whole zoo and it's well worth the time it takes.

Joyce