LettersExotic animals as pets is a disturbing trend that targeted laws can stop

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A lioness in a cage at a private zoo in Karachi, Pakistan in May. Photo: AFP

Published: 1:00pm, 21 Jul 2019Updated: 1:00pm, 21 Jul 2019

Several recent incidents have highlighted a disturbing trend of people keeping wildlife as pets. Media reported a sun bear kept in a private residence without a permit by a Malaysian singer who claimed that she “thought it was a dog”. The same week, a Brahminy kite, a protected species, was found to have been held illegally captive for over a year in a terrace home in Selangor.

Such cases are not uncommon elsewhere in the world. People are motivated to own an exotic pet by a variety of psychological factors. These include the prestige factor or the desire to be different, according to Dr Michael Gumert, a psychology professor at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.

Obtaining exotic animals is all too easy and rarely results in a penalty. The animals are removed from their habitat in the wild and kept in substandard conditions without proper care, and then die or are abandoned. Selling protected wildlife in pet shops or on the internet is one of the largest sources of criminal earnings, after arms smuggling and drug trafficking. Popular animals are chinchillas, sugar gliders, iguanas, tortoises and turtles, various primates and snakes.

Our growing list of concerns about exotic wildlife include the well-known risk of disease transmission to humans; conservation problems in native countries due to demand for endangered species which contributes to the threat of extinction; the serious ecological effects of released or escaped animals on local wildlife; lack of education among the public; and poor regulation of the trade.

Targeted laws can help prevent these abuses and hopefully foster the understanding that animals exist for their own sake, not merely to be possessed as “pets”.

Meenakshi Raman, president, Friends of the Earth Malaysia