Imagine this, you’re an animal taken from your natural habitat just for some rich person to buy you. You’re now stuck living in a tiny cage for the rest of your now shortened life and you can’t do anything about it. 

I used to think having a lion or a tiger as a pet would be cool but is it really worth it to ruin that poor lion’s life and endanger yourself just to look cool? Many animals have to suffer this cruel treatment just because some people see it as a way to show their social status. There is nothing but negative outcomes from keeping exotic animals as pets. For example, PETA stated that a monkey pox outbreak in 2003 had originated from a Gambian rat from Africa to a prairie dog smuggler. Now that monkey pox is starting to come back this could help the spread and make it worse than it already is.

Wild animals are meant to live out in their natural habitat, after all they are wild. Nature has a cycle and humans should not interfere with it. This can result in the endangerment of you or others if you’re an owner of an exotic pet. Did you know that about 15% of people that own an exotic pet found their inspiration off of Youtube, where they glorify exotic pets. This shows that it can be irresponsible to imprison a wild animal.

I believe it should be illegal for someone to keep a pet that is not bred to be domesticated. No more animals should have to undergo this inhumane and unfair treatment.

When people realize that having an exotic pet isn’t what they expected then they decide to throw it back into the environment. This can cause a lot of negative effects in nature. For example after an animal has gotten used to being domesticated it loses its ability to live on its own or, it could cause the opposite and become an invasive species which will result in ruining the food chain in a habitat. My dad went to the Everglades a few years ago and saw much more alligators compared to the amount that he saw when he went back a few years later. This happened because people decide to keep pythons as pets and throw them into the Everglades when they don’t want them anymore. They end up creating mutant snake species and become invasive, eating all of the food that the other species need causing the native species to eventually go extinct. Animals are being tortured. Stop endangering them. Make a change. 

We can all agree that no animal should have to go through such harsh treatment because it is unfair and cruel. Baby pythons have been shoved into cd cases to avoid metal detectors in airports. What if someone did that to your own child? Another example of animals being mistreated is when sugar gliders don’t get the attention they need. They will get so stressed out from not getting attention that they can die or self mutilate. This shows that most exotic animals that are kept as pets have much shorter lives than they would if they were still out in the wild. In fact about 90% of exported reptiles die sooner than they should.

To resolve this problem we need to encourage people to not keep exotic pets and teach them the dangers of doing so. We can also enforce higher security to catch smugglers. There should not be a “permit” to keep certain species as pets, If you’re not a sanctuary then there is no reason to keep an exotic animal in captivity. I have been told that keeping a normal house cat is fine as a pet so it’s the same with wild cats too. Well, it’s not house cats are bred to be pets and taken care of, it's literally in the name. Big cats need much more space and resources than a regular house cat. I have seen a zoo-like exhibit in a mall and they kept wallabies in a much smaller cage than they would need. The wallabies only moved every 45 minutes and had fleas, a wallaby should be much more active than that. The poor Wallabies are as helpless as a baby. Animal’s lives are just as important as a human’s life.