Exotic Pets: A Response to Kim

Kim asks, "Should it be legal to keep exotic pets?"

My answer: only in extreme cases. I do not think it is right to kill a tiger or a cheetah or gorilla simply to take its young and sell them as pets, as often happens. However, if these animals were abandoned or rescued from homes as pets, I think that would be a reasonable reason to have them. Here, I don't mean as a pet, but in a wildlife sanctuary where animals can live out their lives with trained professionals who can properly care and handle them, and where the animals can live out a happy life. So here, although they are being kept, they are not just pets. Animals who are taken from their parents at a young age cannot be released back into the wild, and so the only answer for the rescued ones is a sanctuary or a zoo.

Another common occurrence in the exotic pet industry is that the animal was bought because it was cute when it was young. When it grows up, the owner does not want the pet anymore because they are no longer cute, they are too large, they underestimated the strength of the animal, they simply cannot care for it any more, or a combination of any of these factors. This happens with pets we would normally have too, such as a dog or a cat. As Kim made clear in her post, if you cannot properly care for a pet, do not get one in the first place. That holds especially true for these exotic animals.

With all of this, I have not touched on the extreme case of keeping an exotic pet. The only situation I can conceivably think of is keeping one that was abandoned, orphaned, or rescued to give it a better life. But even then, as I stated before, it is better for these animals to be in the care of a professional who knows how to handle the animal. If the person who has the animal in its care is a professional and is sincerely trying to give the animal a better life, it can be acceptable, though I myself do not condone the practice. Also, the animal would need plenty of space to run around, roam, and exercise.

My question now is this: Should these different sanctuaries allow the animals to breed to battle the extinction of endangered species?