Helping to direct that flow are magazines like Animal Finders' Guide, Rare Breeds Journal and dozens of other publications. The Guide alone reaches more than 10,000 pet shops and another 10,000 animal dealers around the US.
Thanks to the expanded trade in exotic animals, people who lack the sense to care for dogs or cats are now able, throughout most of the country, to purchase, keep, breed, and sell just about any animal they fancy. Down-and-out farmers cringing in the shadows of agribusiness giants are hoping to meet the mortgage by raising ostriches, emus, and rare breeds of sheep, goats, cattle, and horses. Hustling animal trainers and profit-hungry operators of roadside zoos, drive-through game parks, canned hunts, trophy farms, and horn farms are stocking up on lions, tigers, camels, zebras, elk, deer, ibex, eland, and other large, spectacular mammals. Indeed, no form of life is sacred in the exotic animal business, where only two absolutes prevail -- profit and the claim of a constitutional right to own whatever animal one pleases and where every sort of animal is grist for the commercial mill: native and non-native wildlife, rare and endangered species, domesticates, especially unique breeds and oddities, and an assortment of freaks, novelties, and hybrids.
When zoos eventually became swamped with too many animals as a result of overbreeding, they sold their surplus to private ranchers, dealers, breeders, and whoever else would take them. Rapidly, these entrepreneurs organized breeders' associations to cultivate a demand for their chosen species. Through clever and sometimes corny advertising and promotion, exotic animal breeders have created a succession of fad animals: llamas, potbellied pigs, emus, ostriches, "big birds," African pygmy hedgehogs, servals, caracals, bengals, and other small cats. Scrambling to cater to the new class of breeder-entrepreneur that buys exotic animals is an equally new industry of importers, dealers, suppliers, veterinarians, auctions, trade associations, and lobby groups.
Meanwhile, rampant greed has summoned into existence countless numbers of animals no longer wanted by hobby breeders or no longer cared for by sullen owners who have been misled by promises of the perfect pet. These animals fall into a "cycle of hell," says Pat Derby of Performing Animal Welfare Society. Their lives and well-being are threatened by isolation and social deprivation, unsuitable climates, poor diets, inept handling and frequent abuse, and general deterioration.
What's more, animal's needs and complex feeding behavior frequently are ignored because owners prefer using cheap and easy feed. Amusement is apt to turn into abuse when an animal's behavior -- whether natural or deranged -- becomes a problem for an owner. Some owners react to unwelcome behavior by declawing, pulling teeth, increasing restraint, and using other manipulations to try to force docile, petlike behavior. Others ship their exotic pets to auctions, roadside zoos, petting zoos, canned hunts, and taxidermists. Even Pat Hoctor, editor of Animal Finders' Guide and a breeder and ardent promoter of exotic animals, says his industry is "shaming itself."
Hoctor complains that "there is absolutely no acceptable excuse for animals to die by the hundreds so a few people can try to get rich in them. And that is exactly what has been recently happening." According to Hoctor, "a lot of people with improper facilities and little or no knowledge of the animals they are trying to buy are risking money...to buy stuff that is dying like flies."
People's fascination with and deep need for animals also fuels this lamentable trade. Finally, the sense that wild nature is nearly gone inspires many people to obtain a last piece of it embodied in a wild animal. Most have enough sense to know that cougars and monkeys belong in their native habitats, not in cages or on leashes. Yet too many others lacking this sense think it cute or daring to own an exotic.
While concerns about animal well-being are foremost in the minds of animal advocates, other concerns are more likely to rouse the public and to move policy makers to action regarding exotics. Some state and local public-health officials, for example, are concerned that exotics might pose a threat to human health and safety. Large carnivores can get loose and attack people, as cougars and wolf hybrids are wont to do. Other animals, especially primates, can carry diseases harmful to humans. Near Branson, Missouri, a few years ago, Japanese macaques wandered from a roadside zoo and established a free-roaming colony. Many were infected with simian herpes, a disease fairly harmless to the animals but fatal to humans. Luckily, the feral macaques were captured before they could menace tourists or other animals.
State fish-and-wildlife officials are concerned about the impact of exotics on native wildlife. Exotics, they say, can harm native species through disease, predation, competition for food and habitat, and hybridization. A few officials are willing to acknowledge the worsening threat of creeping commoditization -- a threat that grows as the free-wheeling exotics trade promotes a distorted image of wildlife. The cumulative effect of this, some officials say, puts prices on the heads of all wildlife and fosters wider commerce in animals -- dead, alive, or in parts.
This article was made possible by a grant from The Summerlee Foundation.
Jim Mason is founder of The Animals' Agenda and co-author with Peter Singer of Animal Factories (Crown, 1980; revised 1990). His latest book is An Unnatural Order (Simon and Schuster, 1993).
Author's note: I use the term pet (with italics for emphasis) throughout because it conveys the dominance and egoism that prevail in human-animal relations and that fuel the demand for exotic animals. The term companion animal suggests ideals not yet achieved. I felt, therefore, that it would be inappropriate and misleading in this article.
Regrettably, the least understood and discussed effects of the exotic animal trade are its impact on culture. While some groups and individuals in society are trying to rebuild values on the sanctity of the living world, the exotics trade is tearing those values down. When bears and elephants are enslaved to dance in costumes before crowds, awe of nature is diminished. When zebras and lions are manipulated to breed horses, tigers, and other hybrid freaks for profit and amusement, respect for nature is eroded. When one wild species after another is captured, imported, confined, bred, bottle-raised, declawed, and otherwise processed for the pet trade, the human respect and sensitivity toward other life in the world are threatened.
In commoditizing animals for pets and other purposes, the exotic trade is teaching the wrong lessons about wildlife and nature. It is teaching that animals are separable from their communities, their ecosystems, and their evolution. it is teaching ignorance, disrespect, and callousness toward individual animals and, by extension, their species, their biocommunities, and the entire living world.