What animals make the best/worst pets?
I’ve already addressed this prompt on my website and here is the link. Yes! I am a dog person, I cannot see beyond them and when I do decide to get myself a pet, it will be a dog. I don’t know if I would consider buying a pet, but I’ve adopted one and raised one from a pup, will figure it out when it happens.
“You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”
The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint Exupery (1943)
Wild animals have undergone thousands of years of evolution to adapt to life in the wild. With habitat loss and climate change looming larger by the day, animals in the wild are under stress to adapt to these new changes. And for some reason, humans think they must adopt these animals as pets in the vain hope of helping assist them. While the thought is admirable, the concept is unhealthy and dangerous.
A decade or more ago, zoos were endearing, we went there to see animals that we would not get to see every day. These animals were kept in artificially created habitats that would enable them to survive their limited life spans. They were fed food that was sourced locally and may not have been their natural prey. A lot of these wild animals have a level of toxin resistance that they have adapted over generations of living in the wild and it is this resistance that helps them survive in the wild without vaccines, immunizations, or anti-venom shots. Zoos have created the illusion that it is possible to re-home a wild animal within city limits and has created a new issue. That of a side hustle called exotic pets. Joe Exotic/ Tiger King is a prime example of this assumption. And thanks to him, the first animals that come to mind are monkeys and tigers, and how they don’t make great pets. However, there is an entire market dedicated to many mild-mannered pocket pets that are also considered exotic (bearded dragons, tarantulas, sugar gliders, Iguanas, Guinea Pigs, Hamsters, Chinchillas, among others).
Today an ethical challenge surrounds this concept of zoos, with environmentalists and zoologists asserting that zoos resemble prisons where innocent creatures are unnecessarily confined. All animals have the right to enjoy their natural habitat, even if it poses a challenge to human safety. Unlike their natural habitat where they have access to a healthy diet which they earn, thereby ensuring survival of the fittest, a zoo provides meals that are easy to source for the keepers, which may not be a part of the natural diet of the animal in its habitat. Easy accessibility to food only means that the animal gets lazy, but it still requires to cope with thousands of years of adaptations and stalking capabilities in the wild. These instincts are then redirected, and you end up with ‘Snakes in the City” featuring abandoned or escaped exotic pets in urban landscapes.
Exotic pets are animals that are not commonly kept but can be domesticated and can range from the simple Tarantula (I don’t do too well around the tiny species; these will star in the cinematic sequel Arachnophobia 2) to the exotic Caiman Crocodiles (Seen the movie Crawl?) And that’s not even an abandoned pet, it’s just an animal in an urban landscape. Or the Lake Placid series (?).
Incidentally, any animal can become an exotic pet if a pet parent is looking for them. But not all exotic pets can be seen by a veterinarian especially if they are genuinely exotic or extremely aggressive by nature. Some veterinary specialists focus exclusively on handling exotic pets, and they can provide the support and care required by your exotic pet. But keep in mind, that handling your pet, feeding them, and getting them veterinary help as and when required will be an ongoing endeavor as these animals are no longer in their natural habitat. Add to this their unique dietary requirements and exotic pets quickly scale up to become expensive pets, which is when they find themselves abandoned in urban landscapes, making species survival a priority for them as well as for us.
While owning an exotic pet is exclusive on its own, a normal aspect sometimes overlooked is that these exotic wild animals often carry diseases without visible symptoms which could be dangerous to humans. identifying species and related ailments that can jump species is important to know before you invest your time and energy in this exotic hobby.
Bringing a wild animal into your home may seem like an act of gratitude but adopting them as pets could endanger their species in the wild. While at one extreme we have domesticated cats and dogs abandoned and living in shelters or the worst cases euthanized due to space constraints (adopt! Don’t shop.), at the other extreme are our exotic pets or wild animals that have been introduced into our foreign world where everything is unfamiliar and constricted.
Baby animals of all animals are adorable but true to their species, they grow, gain power, and are not timid. Evolution has put some of these species at the top of the food chain making them apex predators. Thousands of years of adaptations, and they will react the same way when they are stressed or hungry making them dangerous and volatile pets.
Your local veterinarian has only specialized in treating regular domestic animals, like cats, and dogs and if you are lucky, then farm animals like goats, sheep, horses, cows, heifers, hens, and roosters. They may not have any idea of how to treat a wild animal. Wild animals require a certain kind of habitat to survive and thrive, and unless you have the means to provide this, expecting them to thrive and survive in your fenced space is cruel and unhealthy.
The issue between having exotic animals as pets and letting them roam free is still debated. Owners feel there is no issue that the exotic pet is the same as having a cat or dog. However, exotic pets require a different kind of care and a space like what they are used to in the wild. Unlike cats or dogs that have gone through some part of the evolution process alongside humans and have adapted to life with man, exotic animals require a few more generations of evolution to even adapt to the concept of being domesticated. But we don’t have the patience to wait around and we abandon the pets at the first sign of trouble, and years of evolution kick in and these abandoned exotic pets, start to adapt and grow and reproduce in this new space of wonder and plenty thereby skewing the ecology of the land.
“Know that the same spark of life that is within you is within all of our animal friends, the desire to live is the same within all of us”
Rai Aren
(Link to articles on traditional pets: . (https://justalittlemore.com/2023/03/15/pets-2/)
(ref Link on exotic pets: https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/exotic-pets-as-animals/20299911)
Just a little more 