I mean, if you do your research correct’y and choose ethical sourses only, most of the top is pretty acceptable too. Big parrots in rescue still need homes, foxes and possums are readily available captive bred and tame (ish- tame for foxes and possums), etc. The only one I can think of is the slow loris since there is no captive bred source andthey do very poorly in captivity due to shitty poaching conditions and shittier husbandry.
Ain’t nobody need a serval or a wolf though.
(Or a wolfdog if they’re too stupid to do their research and just think that they’re just like huskies/mals/shepherds with bigger feet and fluffier ears. Plus there just aren’t any ethical wolfdog breeders, period.)
Rescues do exist and still need homes. Often times facilities will adopt out wolfdpg rescues they get in to people who are actually prepared for what they’re getting. There are also various dog breeds with minimal wolf in their recent ancestry that come from fairly decent breeders. Some, like the czech wolfdog, are even bred for working purposes with varying success. Like I said, research and ethical sourcing.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on the serval, though- there are ways to own all wild cats responsibly, and those who are doing so shouldn’t be punished because some idiot thinks keeping a tiger in a New York apartment is a brilliant idea. I know a gentleman that had a mountain lion and his set up for her was nothing short of impressive. She was an unreleasable cat that his local zoo had no space for, so he went through all the legal hoops to get a permit to keep her, built her enclosure with enrichment and space on his acreage, and kept her responsibly until the end of her natural life. Why should he be shamed or punished for this?
Correct husbandry and responsible sourcing would fix the bulk of all problems people have with exotic pets. As said, I think the only listed species it doesn’t apply to is the slow loris, because there are no rescues available and the husbandry we know for them is god awful. There are some reptile species like that too, where owning one is more cruel than letting nature do what it will. Not just because of size either.
I wanted to respond to some of the notes on this post. Don’t take this response as one to only you, because I’ve had this discussion a thousand thousand times in a thousand thousand ways. That’s why this post is so long and disjointed. A lot of the discussion on this topic ends up being about husbandry, and while the often mediocre to awful quality of care your average “exotic pet” gets is a valid concern, I personally don’t care as much about the quality of life of any individual animal. It is my professional opinion that the most salient reason the exotic pet trade is destructive is because of the many conservation issues it causes.
I have seen first hand the consequences of this. I have never been to any part of southeast Asia, or South America, but I’ve seen dozens of various snakes, lizards, fish, and whole populations of monkeys living in FL. Not one offs either, entire populations with the capacity to spread far and wide from their initial dumping ground. And in the case of those monkeys, potentially harboring a strain of herpes that is fatal to humans. I’ve watched native species be out-competed, eaten, infected with diseases completely foreign to them. I’ve met individual animals who were obtained to be breeding stock for people looking to sell exotic pets. I’ve seen landscapes transformed, I’ve seen it all. And I’ve spoken to people first hand about it.
Every herpetologist I’ve ever met has a sore spot a mile wide on the collectors and hobbyists. I’ll always remember the time I was talking to a herpetologist about how awesome it is that we have eBird and the larger birder community providing so much valuable data for us researchers and wildlife management types. And she said they had something similar for herps…but it was set so only gov’t and other approved biologists could see it, because if some collector or fancier got wind of a rare species, or even a rare color morph in an area, they’d go out and poach the thing to breed and sell into the pet trade.
I’ve had conversations with snake fanciers about the invasive pythons in the everglades, and they’ll start off with an evasive, “yeah…it’s not great…” then slowly start making an argument that the EXTREMELY REAL ecological threat they pose is “overstated hype”. And this hasn’t come from some joe schmo, I’m talking about people in the ‘official’ reptile fancier organizations. Why are they ignoring clear evidence that invasive pythons in the everglades are a big bad?? Because they know they’re implicated. They know they’re the reason the problem exists. Both the initial source and the reason it will be perpetuated. Exotic pet breeding lobbies are very similar to the NRA, in that they dogmatically oppose any and all common sense legislation on the movement/trade of wildlife because they view any restriction on the ability to buy/sell/breed/transport/own wild animals as a slippery slope to them having all their precious pets stripped away.
Pet people have this thing where they think distinctions like “good owner/bad owner, happy animal/sad animal” matter. For every 1 person who has the time, knowledge, and finances to build an aviary for their giant parrot, 100 are keeping it in a petco brand bird cage with a mirror and some sunflower seeds. For every 1 person keeping their snake/tropical fish/tegu in a life of luxury, there’s hundreds dumping them into wilderness areas. And we know this empirically because the animals are there and they didn’t buy plane tickets from Myanmar themselves!!!! But like I said, I don’t really give a damn about husbandry. The exotic pet trade facilitates the spread of invasive species. The exotic pet trade facilitates the spread of disease, like that horrible fungus currently decimating the global salamander population, whether those animals go to “loving homes” or not. The exotic pet trade facilitates poaching–which is the most obvious one. I mean really. We tried having a legal, regulated market for ivory, and look where that’s got us. Massive losses of once healthy elephant populations in the span of only a few years. Now that we’ve gone so far down that road, the global community is racing to stem the tide before the only elephants left are the ones in zoos. Just a week ago there was a story about park rangers inAfrica being killed by poachers, and then another about the same happening to a conservation biologist.
And on the subject of poaching, I also want to point out deeply racist and exploitative the exotic pet trade is. Have you ever wondered why macaws and cockatoos are thought of as “pet birds” but you don’t see as many painted buntings and cardinals at your local pet store? Cuz it wasn’t always like that. Back in the 19th century, birds like Northern Mockingbirds and Painted Buntings were popular pets for Europeans. A mocker with a good repertoire was worth a lot of money. Wild populations of those species were pushed to breaking points by the demand for them as pets. But thankfully for North American birds like painted buntings and mockers, they are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (among other things) and have been for over 100 years now. But guess which countries didn’t have either laws to protect their wildlife, or the funds/political will to enforce said protection laws? And guess which countries have deep pockets and unquenchable thirst for the next shiny bauble/wildlife that are cooler than the boring ones outside their window? And isn’t a funny coincidence that those lines of exploitation and poaching of wildlife and natural resources match up perfectly with lines of imperialistic and colonialist exploitation? Funny how that happens.
And it really is about chasing the next shiny bauble. The biggest, driviest, highest energy, most unbalanced and unstable dog is not enough for some people. No, they’ve gotta have a wolfdog, cuz that’s the only pet that speaks their wild and untamed personality! It’s not enough to snatch a box turtle from outside, or get a rat snake or a king snake, or a zebra finch. No it’s gotta be something exotic and kewl, something venomous, something big, some rare color morph, whatever. It never stops. The rarer it is, the more dangerous it is, the more expensive it is, the more sensitive it is, the more difficult it is to have thrive in captivity, the more they want it and they’ll just keep pushing that boundary in perpetuity. And that’s why I say the whole thing should be upended root and branch. At its very core the concept of it and the base desire of it is contrary to ideas of “responsible” sourcing, or “responsible husbandry”. The whole point is pushing the boundary on what can be legally and safely obtained and raised!! It’s like twitchers flying around the country to catch some poor vagrant bird blown in by a storm and menace it with crowds of people with telephoto lenses until it drops dead. The whole point is the novelty of the thing.
Correct husbandry and sourcing won’t fix any damn problem, because the problem is loss of biodiversity–chiefly from habitat loss, then followed by a suite of other causes including the exotic pet trade. We wouldn’t have frogs and salamanders dropping dead by the thousands and whatever the hell beasts are currently swimming in the Great Lakes without the exotic pet trade! We wouldn’t have these problems if the exotic pet trade lobby didn’t vociferously oppose legislation controlling the buying/selling/breeding/transporting of wildlife.
It’s difficult working in wildlife biology, ecology, or conservation of any stripe because all we’re doing is measuring the rate of decline. A good chunk of people don’t care, and then you find the self-branded ‘animal lovers’ who you assume are the people who could be in your camp and they end up doing ridiculous things like snatching bison calves and putting them in their trucks because they think they’re cold, or breeding bats to sell as pets, or stressing breeding birds with constant playback so they can add a species to their life list, or trying to take selfies with sea lions, or some other whacky bullshit. And you realize that wildlife are being hit from both sides–from people apathetic to the radical loss of biodiversity and productive habitat occurring on this planet at an alarming rate, and people who claim to care…but only to their own selfish ends.
And as for “rescue” and “rehoming”…there are hundreds if not thousands of animals that obviously can’t be released into the wild. The number of rescues that are equipped to deal with this problem is limited. I say that both in terms of resources, and because of the simple fact that many “wildlife rescue” outfits are just excuses for their owners to keep a private menagerie of wildlife as their own kewl pets. “They were gonna die if I hadn’t come along to save them!”
I’ll give my frank professional opinion a biologist. Many of these animals should just be euthanized. Get the ones that we can to rescue facilities. Surely use some of them as stock for breeding programs to repopulate their native habitat. I know there are excellent foundations doing that much needed work with the Amazonian parrots that have been hit for several decades by the double whammy of habitat loss and decades of sustained poaching for the pet trade. These organizations obtain “pet” parrots, put them in outdoor aviaries that simulate native habitat, and have them raise young (the ones that aren’t too fucked up to be able to do so effectively) that they eventually release back onto their native range. I think that’s beautiful and noble work. But in my professional opinion, I don’t like seeing limited conservation dollars and energy wasted caring for a wild animal in captivity that isn’t serving a larger scientific or conservation purpose. I remember a call we once got about an Eastern Phoebe nest on an amphitheater. The caller said there would be a concert that weekend, and wanted us to come remove the Phoebe nest. We said no. Eastern Phoebes are of no great conservation concern for one thing, and for another, they’re wild animals. If the lose the nest, they’ll just learn to build somewhere else next season.
People say you can do multiple things, and while that’s usually true, it often isn’t in conservation. Funding is very limited. Time, energy, and political will are even moreso. 9 times out of 10 I would rather see that limited money and energy be put towards conserving populations in their native habitat than having them live out their natural life just because. I make an exception for animals hurt by anthropogenic causes, cuz that’s not really fair. If a hawk flies into a car and breaks its wing, and can could be released back into the wild with a couple months of care at a responsible wildlife rehab facility, great! But if that hawk can never be released…is there any real purpose in using limited resources to care for it until the end of its lifespan?
I would rather spend that money on a lawyer’s salary to push for better conservation laws/policy to conserve wild populations than save an injured/sick/orphaned whatever and feed and house it for the next 5-10-70 years.
Most zoos, and rescue places have enough animals for their breeding programs, stud books, and educational programs. In the case of injured raptors, many bird rescues keep a pair of adults on hand to raise that season’s orphaned young. How much room do they have for extras?
“Then why would it be bad for an individual to use their own money to keep a mountain lion in a dog kennel?” Because it sets a bad fucking precedence, that’s why. Just like with the attempt to have a legal, regulated ivory market, a “captive-bred” exotic pet industry creates demand for those animals, which always leads back to poaching, spread of disease, ecological disaster, and massive public health concerns. There’s a fucking population of raccoons in Japan–an archipelago nation for anyone who may remember high school bio lessons about the extreme sensitivity of island wildlife—because people thought they’d be fun pets. It just happens. It always happens. That giant snake stops being fun, that fox or skunk starts musking everywhere, and your parrot loses its mind once it reaches sexual maturity, and into the woods they go! I mean, honestly. There are breeds of DOMESTIC DOG that are not recommended to people as pets, because their care needs are too intense. Domestic. Dog. Literally the first domesticated animal. Man’s Best Friend. I am a wildlife biologist and there are dogs I wouldn’t get because I think they’re too much hassle, and I have literally contracted plague from wild animals before. It’s a an act of extreme intellectual dishonesty to imagine any sort of responsible exotic pet trade when the evidence is very clear that people who obtain those animals don’t keep them, don’t keep them welll, and even when they do both and get them from captive breeders, create more pressure on the wild population.
Like, if you(and I mean anyone reading this) really really love tigers, or servals, or wolves, or birds, I AM BEGGING YOU take any money you would have spent on whatever “totally awesome” enclosure you would have built to keep this animal, its food, obtaining, its care, AND DONATE IT TO PRESERVE THAT SPECIES IN THE WILD. Hell, your money would be better spent buying acreage yourself and sitting on it to keep it from being developed. Many state fish & wildife and forestry services have programs that encourage land owners to do just that! We will give you tax credits and all manor of incentives to manage your property for wildlife! Other better things you can do? Push for candidates and policies that would serve conservation interests! This is not some mamby-pamby thing. The threat is very real. Many species are on the fast track to being gone within a few generations. What if all the yahoos in Texas with tigers on their ranches had instead taken whatever land, money, resources they used to keep a tiger for their own gross gratification and put it towards preserving the dwindling wild tiger population? This is very much an either/or situation. Unfortunately, with conservation it almost always is.
And before someone brings it up, no collectors and hobbyists breeding and keeping exotic pets are NOT helping conservation efforts. Good zoos and orgs and the captive breeding programs they manage are vital. Those programs are strictly organized. And exotic animal breeders equating themselves with those efforts are not helpful. Just this past field season I helped out with an indigo snake reintroduction. Those indigo snakes came from a zoo which was breeding them in captivity specifically for the purpose of this reintroduction–which meant they were raised following standards that wouldn’t limit their ability to eventually thrive in the wild. IE, not being cuddled by human handlers. During this long season of work, I ran into people who would ask what I’m doing and what all the signage was about, and were happy and supportive of our efforts. And it really sucks that I was not 100% thrilled about it. Cuz in the back of my mind, I was wondering, is this person a snake/wildlife fan, or is this person mining for information so they can come back after we release these snakes into the wild and snatch a couple to breed and sell as pets?
A Pretty Taste for Paradox 