It is shockingly easy to own exotic animals in the U.S.

[marmar]

from Grist:




.....(snip).....


New Scientist has rounded up info on U.S. exotic animal laws, from their comfortable position outside the U.S. where they can freely be appalled. Some choice factoids:

* There are eight states with no laws against owning exotic animals.

* Other states' laws are wildly inconsistent -- for instance, in Arkansas you can't own a lion, but you can own six bobcats, which is probably the same amount of wild cat by volume.

.....(snip).....

* In 2004, there were about 5,000 tigers in captivity in the country, and only 5 percent were in accredited zoos.

.....(snip).....

* In 2008, a Texas woman was arrested for selling tiger cubs in a Walmart parking lot. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.grist.org/list/2011-10-21-it-is-shockingly-easy-to-own-exotic-animals-in-the-u.s

[Poll_Blind]

1. That is crazy!

:wtf:

PB

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. In rural Kansas, they are popular with meth lab operators

Scary combination - a Bengal tiger and a meth lab. :scared:

[HockeyMom]

3. Cruel

One winter in NY somebody abandoned an iguana in the snow in the parking lot of a PETCO. That poor creature is not suited for the cold and snow. Employees of the store found it and brought it inside wrapped in a blanket. While they rescued it from outside, they did not know what to do with a tropical exotic animal. The manager called the Humane Society. The last I heard while in the store was that the iguana had to be kept very, very warm. Hopefully, it was saved.

Why to people do this?

[Kali]

5. people at a petco didn't know how to take care of an iguana?

:wtf: jeebus they sell them there, don't they? iguanas are pretty common pets - you can buy the housing, heating, lights and often food for them at most pet stores I have been to.

[HockeyMom]

11. Iguanas are a banned exotic species in NYC

While this was on Long Island, perhaps the store decided not to sell them (IF legal in Suffolk) based on the proximity to NYC? I never saw iguanas in those chain pet stores, so how would a store employee know what to do with it?

[Kali]

15. the way most people would? google? ask corporate?

didn't know they were illegal - I think they are now bread in captivity (could be wrong, I know a LOT of snakes are as well as many species of tropical fish and birds)

[GreenStormCloud]

4. I once owned a pet bobcat.

We lived in the country in the 1950s and Dad found a bobcat kitten while it was still small enough to be socialized. It grew up to act just like an overgrown housecat. It purred, loved to be stroked and cuddled. But it was big enough to whip a dog's ass. Since we lived in the country he learned to hunt and eventually he returned to the wild.

It would take a LOT more than six bobcats to equal one lion. A bobcat weighs about 30 lbs while a lion weighs about 500 lbs. Some individuals are larger.

[RebelOne]

6. I once owned 2 boa constrictors, but when they reached

7 feet long, it was hard to find live rats to feed them. I hated doing that anyway. Finally, I gave them to Miami-Dade Community College to their hands-on lab for teaching children about wild animals. No, I did not do what lot of dumb asses in Florida did and release them into the Everglades.

[Codeine]

12. My red-tailed boa was up to jumbo rabbits when I parted with her.

No more pets for me, exotic or otherwise.

[jberryhill]

7. The last time there was pending federal legislation on exotic animals

There was an invasion of Internet forums by folks who would have had you believe it was the end of the world.

[TheWraith]

8. The problem, of course, is in not running roughshod over animal rescues...

...and people with "exotic" pets that aren't really that exotic. There's one lady down in Arkansas who runs a rescue outfit for tigers out of her home; some of the more sociable tigers are allowed to hang out in the house with her. When I read about her, she had something like 30 tigers on her 90 acre property. National Geographic did a story on her; among the photos for their layout was her trying to tug a piece of laundry back out of the mouth of a playful tiger cub, and a full grown tiger sprawled out across her couch taking a nap.

There's another place in Tennessee that houses 280 cats, mostly tigers and lions. They feed the kitties some 2400 pounds of meat a day.

Neither of the outfits I've mentioned are government operated or supported; they're entirely private individuals doing their thing. And there's lots, lots more like them. Of those 5,000 tigers in captivity, most not in zoos, chances are almost all of them are in places like this. The people who have animals they're mistreating aren't in the system.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

18. These sanctuaries would almost certainly not need to exist --

were it not for private ownership of exotic animals. When an exotic gets too big to handle/feed/care for they are then dumped onto such sanctauries. Big cats and chimps are two of the biggest problems - folks get them when they are small and cute -- when they grow up they can become dangerous and unmanageable.

The sale and ownership of exotics is something that needs to be VERY highly regulated and permited.

[Withywindle]

9. The laws about native animals bother me, too.

They are so messed up that in too many states it's technically legal to own a tiger or lion or other (exotic, dangerous) wild animal never meant to be a pet


BUT



you also can't keep a deer or crow or groundhog or other native, harmless, non-intrusive species that you raised.

[backscatter712]

10. There's a place near Keenesburg, CO called The Wild Animal Sanctuary.

They're a sanctuary that specializes in dealing with big cats - they've got hundreds of tigers, lions, other big cats, but they also have wolves, bears of various types, other animals.

Each of these animals has a story, usually pretty tragic. Bears that were in traveling circuses that trained them by addicting them to nicotine. Tigers locked up in horse trailers. Pretty fucked up shit.

You will see more tigers here than you'll see in one place anywhere else in America.

According to them, there are literally more tigers kept illegally by douchebags in Texas than there are wild ones left globally.

http://www.wildanimalsanctuary.org/

[Codeine]

13. We had a tiger sanctuary just down the street from my old house.

Turned out it was a nightmare of starving and diseased animals. :(

http://articles.latimes.com/2003/apr/25/local/me-tigers25

[backscatter712]

16. There are some good sanctuaries out there. The one by Keenesburg is one of them. n/t

[justiceischeap]

14. A lot of the "sanctuaries" aren't regulated, so there's no guarantee

that the exotic animals that are housed there are getting any better treatment than where they are rescued from. I wonder if there's a way to see if this is an American phenomenon. Not to say that people in other countries don't own exotic animals but I wonder if it's more of the American, "I gotta have something no one else has" mentality.

There should really be a Federal law prohibiting exotic animal ownership and Federal regulations in place for rescue and/or sanctuaries that house exotic animals rescued from circuses, etc.

[ThomWV]

17. Yeah, but it takes a lifetime to find just the right dog.