Does that wild animal really make a good pet?
Social media is rife with images of people showing their exotic pets: monkeys, chimpanzees, parrots. Those images make owning an exotic animal look glamorous. But is it really?
Here’s a simple, three-step experiment:
· Search “how much does a grey parrot cost.” Typical answer: $1,000 to $4,000.
· Search “free parrot rehoming near me.” How many results did you get? Five adoption shelters? Ten shelters? A recent search on petfinder.com listed over 100 parrots for adoption near us.
· Now ask yourself: if owning a parrot is so great, why are so many people willing to take the bird they spent about $3,000 to buy, and give it away to a shelter, just to get rid of it?
Wild animals are not meant to be pets. Owning an exotic pet is expensive, time-consuming, and potentially dangerous. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular wild animals kept as pets.
Chimpanzees thrive in family groups.
Chimpanzees: Chimpanzees are our closest animal cousins. They are intelligent and social, like us. But that does not mean they are suited to live in a human environment: just the opposite. Chimps are highly social creatures who live in large family groups. Captured and forced to live alone, their wellbeing plummets. Worse still, chimpanzee groups are fiercely protective of each other. A young chimpanzee cannot be captured for the pet trade without killing the mother, and often many other family members who come to the young chimp’s defense. It is estimated that for every young chimpanzee captured to be sold as a pet, 10 adult chimpanzees were killed.
Monkeys: Monkeys are cute and adorable, but do they really make good pets? Most have a life expectancy of several decades. Capuchins, for example, can live for 40 years in captivity. For all that time, captive monkeys—removed from their habitat—depend entirely on their owner for all their needs. They require a specialized diet that can be expensive to buy or time-consuming to prepare. Veterinary care for an exotic pet can be more difficult to find and more expensive than care for a domestic animal. Wild animals have natural instincts that can result in injury to humans or other pets. Now multiply all that by 40 years.
Capuchin monkey
Parrots: Parrots and other birds are among the most common wild animals captured for the pet trade. For example, about 20% of the wild population of grey parrots is captured for the pet trade each year. But the trade is deadly for the birds. 30-66% of parrots captured for the pet trade die before reaching the international market. Meanwhile, the wild parrot population continues to decline. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the population is likely to decline by as much as 79% over the next 40 years.
One-third to two-thirds of the grey parrots captured for the pet trade die before reaching the international market. (Source: IUCN Red List)
Endangered species: Wildlife traffickers target endangered species, like chimpanzees and grey parrots, because their scarcity allows the traffickers to charge higher prices for each animal. This leads to overexploitation, and pushes these species ever closer to extinction.
What can you do?
Wild animals are not meant to be pets. Owning an exotic pet is expensive, time-consuming, and potentially dangerous. Owning an endangered species as a pet, instead of allowing it to live and reproduce in its natural environment, drives that species toward extinction. But you can be part of the solution:
· Instead of keeping a wild animal as a pet, leave their care to the experts and visit them at an accredited zoo or aquarium.
· Support accredited wildlife sanctuaries, like Lwiro Primates, that care for the animals rescued from the illegal wildlife trade.
· Do not like or share social media images of wild animals kept as pets. Those images try to make the animals seem “cute” but never mention to cost, commitment, longevity, and risks of ownership.
Wild animals are not meant to be pets. “If you really love them, you’ll let them be.”
For more information: