People Are Against Exotic Pets Just Because They’re Not Common

The ‘Parrot Paradox’ 

 

I've had several people assume my green aracari must be illegal. 

 

There’s an interesting phenomenon that occurs with people who hold anti-exotic pet sentiment, and that is their tendency to have a negative reaction to animals being kept as pets that has little or nothing to do with their perception of how unsuitable they are for captivity, but rather they just don’t like that your pet is not commonly owned.

 It is a mentality I’m going to call the ‘Parrot Paradox’—due to one of the most common examples of this. Many parrot species are considered to be some of the most ‘intelligent’ non-human animals in the world, with cognition that is often compared to that of human toddlers (whether it is true or not). This is also true of monkeys, whose owners are often heavily criticized in the mainstream for keeping such ‘complex’ and ‘intelligent’ animals captive.

 Despite their supposed complexity, parrots are also extremely common for an exotic pet and enjoy some level of mainstream acceptance. We even have a ‘traditional parrot name’—Polly—the equivalent of Fido or Spot for dogs. Generally it is only the more radical anti-pet people who question hookbills being kept as pets. 

Yet, show the average person a pet toucan, which is arguably less ‘complex’, and you will notice that people are more likely to object to that being kept as a pet because it seems more ‘exotic’. Toucans are uncommon pets and have different needs than parrots, but there is no evidence whatsoever that they do worse in captivity than parrots (other than breeding success)—in fact some species might be even less demanding.

 If you go down the line of parrot species from less common to more common, the acceptance grows. 

For instance, cockatiels are parrots but are some of the most popular pet birds, so you’ll be highly unlikely to meet resistance. It’s not as though the average person possesses any knowledge of these birds, they are simply reacting to how uncommon your pet is.

In other words, the less common your pet, the more hate you get.

Pet uncommonness or uniqueness is no proper measure of its suitability for captivity or adaptability as a pet.

While it is often the case that some animals are not kept as pets so often because they are more ‘difficult’ to care for (this has several meanings), this is certainly not always the case.

Another problem with this mentality is that those poor animals that are often perceived as ‘traditional’ pets often don’t get the same attention into their care as those weird ‘wild’ pets. 

For some reason, people who object to strange exotic pets perceive them as requiring specialty care, which in turn means that those other pets that don’t bother them must be ‘easy’ to care for or somehow well-adapted to captive conditions. There are many common and traditional pets, like parrots, that show why this isn’t a logical assumption.

Dogs might be the only species truly ‘adapted’ to live with humans as their domestication began before humans pursued it intentionally, yet even they have their own special requirements. 

No animal is inherently an easy-care toy for human beings; they all have their special needs. Perhaps if people started seeing animals that way, they’d stop irrationally being against all exotic pets and also pay more attention to the normal pets they never questioned.

Don’t Be Fooled by National Geographic—they don’t know what they’re talking about

Exotic pets may seem appealing…because they are. Having a unique pet is sometimes worth enduring the smell, the difficulty, and the minuscule danger. 

“WOULD YOU LIKE to have a red panda as a pet?”

This National Geographic article declares. And my answer is yes, yes I would. They seem like fascinating animals. But I can’t. No one in the United States has a red panda as a pet, nor am I aware of anyone in the world who does. 

Yet this dumb article seems to believe that red panda pet keepers are a real threat. It casually discusses why they make bad pets alongside animals that are actually feasible to own such as sloths, capybaras, fennec foxes, lemurs, and even sugar gliders.

Inevitably, it also discusses slow lorises, animals that actually are threatened by the pet trade but are not kept in the Western World. People who are obviously ignorant to how the pet trade works in the United States frequently seem to think that any animal is obtainable, and their ignorance shows why they shouldn’t be shaming people from owning certain pets when they know nothing about this topic.

The author’s reasoning for discouraging keeping sugar gliders as pets, for instance, while acknowledging that they are popular and extensively captive-bred, seems to amount to their nails being long. That’s literally it.

Thane Maynard of the Cincinnati Zoo has a peculiar reason for thinking the unobtainable red pandas are bad pets.

“They have cat-like claws that would tear up your furniture and maybe even you.

Well Thane, if you’re trying to tell people that something is a bad pet, you probably shouldn’t say that the animal has claws just like the domesticated pets you are pushing them to get instead. Many of these same problems exist with cats, dogs, and ferrets.

The rest of the article’s claims just amount to generalizations of ‘bad’ things associated with each animal—sloths apparently suffer psychological distress when being touched (even some AZA zoos use them as ‘ambassadors’, so being a personal pet would pale in comparison), fennec foxes are smelly and messy, capybaras are social and ‘might’ bite, tigers are deadly, prairie dogs can’t dig in wire cages, lemurs can attack you, and otters are aggressive.

Such a broad spectrum of animals are being lumped together based on their exotic-ness, even though they differ from each other significantly. Some are completely unobtainable so there’s no reason to discuss them, others are a little more inconvenient than the typical house cat to keep as a pet, and one can definitely kill you.

I think we all know that all animals have ‘bad’ qualities as pets. Cats can spray and have stinky urine, some dogs can be plenty destructive, and ferrets (unless this is too exotic for National Geographic) have lingering odors. Domesticated rabbits are prevented from digging too.

So again, I’m not sure why these authors feel that something shouldn’t be a pet simply because there are negative traits with owning them, like there are for all pets.

With the exception of the tiger and those animals that are removed from the wild through non-sustainable methods, these exotic animals appear to be just like any other—only suited for those who do their research and are fine with their attributes.

Once Again, Animal Ambassadors Are Pets

"ASW12-061" by TrishaLyn is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

 Just to further emphasize that some of the worst offenders when it comes to the spreading anti-exotic pet rhetoric are exotic pet owners themselves, I need to discuss the problem of those people who exhibit exotic animals for ‘educational purposes’. I would guess that around 90% of the time these people, many whom have purchased these exotic animals and own them in their homes, will tell people some version of the following:

·         

• These don’t make good pets
• They are not pets
• They are ambassadors for their species

Now, I’m all for discouraging people from obtaining pets they are not prepared for. Unfortunately much of the general public sees tame exotic animals and assume those species will behave like the standard golden retriever or tame housecat. When people like this get exotic animals and it doesn’t work out, this fuels the perception that no one should have them as pets. Many of these former owners resent their negative experience and often join animal rights radicals under the perception that if they failed, there’s no way anyone else can be doing well with their exotics.

  

As imperative as it is to never promote certain animals as pets, making the generalization that no one can or should keep a certain species as a pets is undoubtedly harmful.

  

The first and most obvious fact staring a rational person in the face is that you are keeping it as a pet, despite the words that are coming out of your mouth. Your warning then has a similar effect to the words of a parent telling their kid to not eat junk food while they gorge on a brownie sundae.

  

An even more clever thinker might not buy this idea that only ‘qualified’ persons can own these animals when it becomes apparent (in many cases) this animal exhibitor has little credentials and has only applied for a relatively easily obtainable USDA license.

Aside from that hypocrisy, animal ambassador exhibitors cannot escape this truth: presenting a tame animal on a leash is not only promoting that species as a pet, it is misrepresenting that species, which inadvertently affects both the exotic pet trade and educational credibility.

For instance, presenting a tame raccoon or coati on a leash teaches the general public that these animals are calm and ‘dog-like’. It does not represent the other side of how they can be in captivity, and this includes the level of danger they present when they have hormonal outbursts that can result in severe injuries for the owner.

Some ‘educators’ teach these animals to interact with the public, and the most daring of them will even allow people, including small children, to hold these animals.

Essentially, the fate of exotic animal legality often rests in the claws of an untrustworthy non-human.

These are the reasons why it is absurd and nutty for exotic animal exhibitors to talk negatively about the pet trade, when in fact they should be its biggest ally.

If you have a problem with the exotic pet trade, you cannot abide by your values and continue to misrepresent animal behavior which will lead people to perceive these animals as dog-like.

People who present animal ambassadors instead should just stick to the facts, instead of moralizing. For instance, instead of saying “raccoons are not pets”, say “raccoons will be destructive in the home and they can leave you with a serious bite wound”. 

You can never go wrong with the facts.

When you agree with the animal rights activists that an animal makes a bad pet it is not good for you, the exotic pet owner. This can result in future legislation blocking you from getting more exotics.

Dear Dog and Cat Owners, No One Is Safe

Earlier this month I got into it with an animal rights nut claiming to be a veterinarian (no longer practicing) named ‘Karen’ in a Facebook group over a New York Times article. The topic was about elephant captivity being so formidably terrible that the animals were probably better off being poached in Africa (I kid you not). 

After I got fed up with the constant appeal to animal rights ideology of this particular group, this person made some determination by looking at my profile that I couldn’t possibly understand why animals deserve rights, probably because there are pets on my page (gasp). As I called out the presence of pet dogs on her page, she proclaimed that she is against keeping all pets, her animals were rescues, and that once they die she won’t get anymore. 

She must have regretted exposing such extremism because when I went back recently to screen cap those comments, they were all deleted and her Facebook profile was hidden (I pulled this comment out of my email). 

Not too long after that encounter, this nice little gem of an article, not the first of its kind, began trending on the ‘Pocket’ recommendations on FireFox’s homepage.

‘Should We Stop Keeping Pets’?

Ohh boy, it never stops. I thought I was joking when I wrote this but it has become a reality.

 Despite the implications, it was refreshing to see an article that for once, fairly included all pets in its examination instead of arbitrarily choosing certain exotic pets that the author just happens to think are strange and therefore unnecessary and wrong for someone to own. 

I also hope this article will give other pet owners some perspective before they embrace a movement that they think doesn’t view them as sinners.

It’s easy to be stand up against something when it doesn’t involve your life. While exotic pet owners face incessant local, statewide, and Federal bans for one pet causing a minor injury or even for no reason at all, you’ll see dog owners get livid over bans that target a breed they like in response to the 10^th human death in the past 3 months, or cat owners lose it over the idea that they should be forced to keep their pets on their own property.

They are clearly overly comfortable with their favorable position in society. This Pocket article suggests they shouldn’t be.

“At the same time, research is revealing that the emotional lives of animals, even relatively “simple” animals such as goldfish, are far more complex and rich than we once thought…the logical consequence is that the more we attribute them with these characteristics, the less right we have to control every single aspect of their lives”

says Hal Herzog, professor of psychology at Carolina University and founder of the “budding field” of ‘anthrozoology’ (this is the name of the Facebook page where I found my friend Karen. It seems to be a front for discussing animal rights ‘scientifically’).

The article continues:

“Does this mean that, in 50 years or 100 years, we won’t have pets? Institutions that exploit animals, such as the circus, are shutting down –…”

 It discusses the legal status of animals and some of the ridiculous changes the law has made in attempts to not see animals are ‘property’. I hope animal lovers who are also pet lovers can now see why these changes are so damaging.

Herzog, the nut and Class A moron whose opinions this article is engaging, is also a vegan, has convinced his girlfriend to go vegan, and actually released his pet bird in a shocking act of animal cruelty as well as environmental meddling but has no problem admitting to it.

“‘I knew she wouldn’t survive, that she probably starved. I guess I was doing it more for myself than for her.’”

The other two anti-pet simpletons mentioned in the article have pets.

“Although Pierce and Francione agree that pet ownership is wrong, both of them have pets: Pierce has two dogs and a cat; Francione has six rescue dogs, whom he considers “refugees”

I need to once again emphasize that it is very common for pet owners themselves to spread anti-pet ideology, just like my friend Karen. This shows the extent of the damage and the lunacy of the type of thinking that involves using dumb reasons or words to excuse yourself from the supposed ‘cruelty’ (Francione calling her pets “refugees”).  

While the article claims there is ‘research casting doubt on the ethics of pet-keeping’, it cites only one ‘study’ to support this, an opinion piece called ‘Dogs are People Too’ by Gregory Burns.

In the article, a researcher who is training dogs to hold still for MRI scans makes the shocking discovery that dogs feel positive emotions, and therefore they must have comparable sentience to a human child and we need to ‘re-think how we treat dogs’.

I feel the phrase ‘Never Go Full Retard’ applies here.

The idea that there are still researchers out there discovering that dogs actually feel as though this is new information paints a devastating picture of the state of the scientific community. Even more, that once these ‘new discoveries' are made, we must change how we do things. This shows how animal rights nuts manipulate science to claim there is ‘new research’ that demands we need to stop keeping pets, as they re-invent ways to say things we already know, like animals being conscious and being capable of suffering. 

These days, as I referred to on Facebook, nothing seems to excite people more than the idea that we need to start giving up animal-related activities that bring us pleasure or give our lives meaning. It can start with something completely reasonable, like making laws that promote the humane treatment of pets and livestock, but that ultimately will be challenged by activists to not be enough (vegans often vehemently attack any form of 'humane' farming), until complete ‘animal liberation’ is granted.

It will get to the point that it will be wrong for us to ‘decide’ anything for animals, even when it comes to saving elephants from culls, or keeping stranded cetaceans in captivity. 

Activists are so intoxicated by the idea of animals ‘choosing’ things for themselves that they want them to ‘choose’ death, but they don’t seem to realize that if an animal actually had an understanding of what they stood to lose and gain, and actually decided to be in captivity, animal rights nuts will decide for them that they can’t have this, either.

They lose either way.