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Q&A on private exotic ownership
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by tigers9 on August 2, 2007
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http://www.rexano.org//Wild_Exotic_Pet_Animal_Frame.htm
Questions and Answers about keeping Wild and Exotic Animals in captivity.
By Zuzana Kukol, August 2007
1. Should private individuals be allowed to Keep Wild and Exotic Animals as Pets ?
Yes, absolutely. Habitat of many wild and exotic animals is disappearing due to human encroachment, and the only way to save many species from extinction is thru captive breeding. Since it is us humans encroaching on their wild habitat, it is our responsibility to offer them an alternative captive habitat so they can survive into the next millennium.
Nobody is born an expert on captive animal husbandry, and the best way to become one is thru hands on experience and close personal contact.
Unlike domestic animals, most commonly kept exotics are small and relatively easy to take care of. Many books and care sheets are available in pet stores and on the Internet. Online Elists are also a great way to meet fellow pet owners and ask for more advice on how to become a better educated owner.
Majority of exotics sold in pet market are captive bred and don’t require as much space or attention as a dog would. Allergy is also less of a problem with pet reptiles for example than with a domestic cat.
This makes small exotic animals a perfect pet for apartment dwellers or a kid with allergies or asthma. Pet ownership also teaches kids about unconditional love and responsibility by caring for another creature.
Many veterinarians, zoologists, researchers and animal trainers wouldn’t be in the business now if they didn’t own wild animals as a child. We can never know which child or exotic pet owner will grow up to be our next conservationist, zoo director, biologist or wild animal trainer. Only thru close personal contact can we really understand and appreciate these wonderful creatures. Love and dedication for them cannot be taught through books.
2. Is a ban on exotic and wild animal ownership ever justified ?
No, never, especially not in America, where freedom to choose our animals is as important to us as freedom of speech or the air we breathe.
You often hear a phrase that “exotic animals are not for everybody”, and I couldn’t agree more. Most people who choose to share their life with wild and exotic animals do understand special care and considerations needed to keep them. They often live far away from amenities of a comfortable city life, give up extended (or any) vacations just to be able to share their lives with their exotic animals.
Just like we have few sensationalized cases of bad parenting or domestic animal ownership, we have few cases of bad exotic animal ownership. These extremely isolated incidents should never be used as a reason to punish the responsible majority of exotic owners, just like one case of child abuse shouldn’t be a reason to ban human reproduction and parenting.
3. Are there any serious public safety risks associated with exotic animals ?
Domestic animals cause many more injuries and fatalities than their exotic counterparts, so exotics are less of a public safety risk. But even with domestics, the risk of dying is extremely low compared to risks we encounter in everyday life from fellow humans, such as car accidents, murders or natural disasters.
Human to human disease transmission is responsible for more diseases than exotics to human transmission.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports, that food borne diseases cause approximately 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths in the United States each year.
According to a CDC study 1.4 million human Salmonella infections and an estimated 600 associated deaths occur each year in the United States, but only 6% of them is associated with reptile or amphibian contact. However, less than 1% of human Salmonella infections are caused by the “reptile-associated” serotypes (reptile only specific salmonella strain).
This means is that many captive reptiles might not be the primary source of infection; they got infected by their food, raw chicken, eggs and vegetables, the same food their human owners ate.
CDC employee recently admitted that US privately kept non human primates never caused any disease in humans.
Many animal rights (AR) activists sensationalize exotic animal attacks and are presenting exotic animal ownership as a public safety issue to scare the public, but there are no facts to back it up. This fraud and fear mongering has to stop.
Exotic animal related fatalities are extremely rare and mostly affect owners and handlers, which is a hobby/occupational hazard associated with their profession, but not a public safety risk. This is not any different than sky diver dying in a jump or firefighter dying in a fire, yet, we don’t see calls to ban firefighters or sky diving.
4. Are Exotic and Wild Animals causing damage to our environment ?
Even if accidentally escaped or released, most exotics can not survive in the majority of our climate or harm native wildlife unlike feral cats, which are very adaptable and can survive anywhere and harm local wildlife and cause damage to the ecosystem. Most state wildlife agencies already have rules against possession of so called ‘detrimental” wildlife.
5. Is it true that most exotic animal owners abuse their animals ?
No, this is pure AR propaganda. Their real goal is abolishing all human/animal contact and to end all animal use; no animals in captivity, not even domestic pets, no farm animals and no leather goods…
Owning exotics, especially big predators, requires lots of financial investment and personal commitment on the part of the owner. Why would these owners invest so much time and money, give up so much of their personal freedoms and spent so much time fighting for their rights to keep their cherished pets if they didn’t love them? That makes no sense.
There is lots of personal sacrifice involved to own them, however, the exotic animal owners don’t see it as a sacrifice; they fight for their animals out of unconditional love for them.
Animals have to be in top physical and mental condition to perform in entertainment or to breed and raise young. Yet, tigers reproduce in captivity very easily, and there are more tigers in captivity then in the wild where their numbers are taking a steep downhill turn. This alone is the proof captive exotics are well taken care of, and if our government ceased to intervene with private ownership, the tiger and other exotics could be saved by the private sector with no cost to our government and taxpayers.
Many more veterinarians are also getting more knowledgeable about the subject of treating exotics.
If extreme AR activists claim there are so many abuse cases, how come we don’t have more court cases and convictions related to them? Where are the facts and proofs, instead of hearsay?
6. Are all the exotic and wild animal bans are a waste of our government resources and taxpayers money as well as attacks on our personal freedoms ?
Yes, bans on exotic and wild animals is a waste of our government resources, waste of tax payers money and a serious attack to our Constitutional freedoms and right to pursue liberty and happiness. Since there is no public safety issue, these bans solve nothing, cost too much and give people an artificial feeling of safety or accomplishment, since their real safety in real life didn’t improve with these bans.
7. Why are our legislators passing these bans ?
Many are truly just naïve and misinformed, some have been brainwashed by extreme animal right agendas and their well paid lobbyist. Remember, the extreme AR movement is composed of people making lots of money of purported animal suffering: the bigger the abuse story, the more donations for the group and higher salaries for their officers.
It is the extreme money hungry AR groups making money off the supposed animal suffering.
They have shown little or no concern over the displaced pets that might have to be placed in a crowded sanctuary or euthanized if new ban or extreme regulation (expensive liability insurance requirement) is passed. Exotic animals like big cats get very attached to their original owners, and unfair bans forcing them out of their loving homes is a form of abuse in itself.
It is the misinformed legislators, together with AR groups, who are the biggest threat to our animals. They are the ones sentencing endangered wildlife to a certain death by regulating them to extinction in captivity. If the wild habitat is disappearing and captive habitat is outlawed, where are the animals supposed to go?
8. What can we do?
Educate your legislators, friends and family about the threat these bans pose to the wildlife as well as to our freedoms. Contact your legislators and tell them to oppose all exotic and wild animal bans.
Photo Copyright © REXANO, All rights reserved
© REXANO 2007
www.REXANO.org
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RE: Q&A on private exotic ownership
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by Viperlady on August 2, 2007
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I read thru all your Q&A and found it really thoughtful and based upon facts. Tho I'm not in the States, I'd certainly be on your side and fight against organizations trying to ban theese practices. In the end, keeping and breeding exotic species might mean salvation for some of whose environment is being destroyed by other human practices. I raise my voice in favor of experts and hobbists who stand strong to defend their rights.
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RE: Q&A on private exotic ownership
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by Rob_Carmichael on August 3, 2007
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All very well said even though I don't agree with every point (but I will bite my tongue) it does hit on the facts of how wasteful government can be at times and how "they" decide how our freedoms should be interpreted. An important issue is irresponsible owners (and unscrupulous sellers/breeders)....if we were all practicing responsible ownership, government wouldn't have to resort to stiff bans on keeping herps in order to protect the public. I'm torn by the issue because I ride both sides of the fence (zoo side and private hobbyist side) but when you have to deal with as many idiots as I do in terms of irresponsible keeping of venomous herps, it is easy to see why I tend to take a harsh stance at times. There's too many bad apples in our hobby and we are not able to self regulate ourselves. If you want a good model for success, look at the sport of falconry (not exactly apples to apples but falconry and herp keeping run parallel paths in some regards).
Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center
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RE: Q&A on private exotic ownership
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by tigers9 on August 3, 2007
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Rob,
I know more about idiots then you can imagine, one lives 10 minutes from me. Not sure how many of you remember few years ago, the tiger that was escaped in California near Reagan library for 3 weeks and then was killed...well, the owner moved to NV near wher I live, got only home detention , no real prison time for lying to federal authorities . Where is the justice...but if they make bans because of him, responsible people like me will be banned and go down the drain too, so I keep fighting the bans and educating my local government. Here is more about it from Las Vegas Sun newspaper where I was interviewed in January 2007, and yes, I had to bite my tongue when talking about him;)
http://www.rexano.org//NewsArchivePages/2007January28LVSun.pdf
Z
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RE: Q&A on private exotic ownership
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by Rob_Carmichael on August 3, 2007
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I completely agree...we all need to keep fighting the good fight as there are some great folks who deserve the chance to keep their animals w/out worrying about laws, etc. I noticed you keep lions. There is a well known lion researcher from Kenya speaking at a fundraiser tonight that I am going to (he is talking about his research with lions). I'll stick with venomous herps:-)
Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center
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