US exotic pet amnesty turns up Aussie icons

[Kandy-Sugar]

An amnesty day for people with exotic pets held in Florida turned up dozens of animals — including about 25 Australian sugar gliders.

During Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation’s Exotic Pet Amnesty Day owners could turn in their pets without facing any consequences.

About 64 were turned in, including a leopard gecko, two Madagascan giant chameleons, pythons, boas, turtles, fish, and the gliders.

FWC’s Joy Hill told ABC News many simply could not continue to care for their pets as they continued to grow and multiply.

"Things just got out of control for the woman who impulsively bought a sugar glider and then a couple more to breed with it," Ms Hill said. "She ended up turning in about 25 of them, including a few little babies -- they are prolific breeders."

All the animals were adopted by individuals or organisations capable of caring for them.

Ms Hill said the idea was to avoid owners releasing their animals into the wild when they could no longer care for them.

It is illegal to own sugar gliders as pets in Australia but not in Florida and some other states in the US.

Source

This is a really good idea.

Allowing people to hand in exotic pets that they can no longer take care of is very smart. Too many people release them into the wild, and they only end up dying because they can't take care of themselves.

The article is very wrong about keeping Sugar Gliders as pets in Australia. Where the hell do they think Sugar Gliders come from? It's only illegal in some states. Most states can keep them as pets if owners have a permit.

 

[Lirael]

I find the whole concept of keeping wild animals as pets rather immoral, really... When people take animals out of the wild and start breeding them, they create animals that can't live in their natural environment, which will have to be looked after. But I don't think people CAN look after these animals properly. They cannot provide them with the space they require and would need A LOT of money to keep them at all...

The other week, there was a program about wild animals who had been kept by a selection of people from America. One man had kept a lot of tigers and lions. He called his place a sanctuary for them, pledging that he wanted to protect them. However, he needed to make money to sustain it so essentially turned it into a petting zoo. People visited, they got to stroke some of the animals, and the man showed off his lyres; he had persuaded a lion and tiger to mate by providing no lionesses for the male lion. He claimed this was a phenomenon and used the animals as a publicity stunt.

In another example, one woman had made another so-called santuary for her chimps. However, these animals were in relatively small cages. She thought she was doing right by them. She claimed that she loved them and understood them and that they were all very very happy. But they were all screaming. They threw their bedding at one another. They jumped in frustration and banged their hands against the walls and fencing. In short, they looked and sounded incredibly frustrated.

I suppose the main issue is the way people keep on breeding these animals. What's the point? In doing so, you're adding to the problem of animals who cannot protect themselves. You're not protecting the animals that have had to go into human care after an accident...


Yeah, I went off on a tangent there, but it does apply... Sanctuaries are good. People trying to help these animals is good, but I think keeping them as pets should be against the law entirely. The governments need to deal with the root of the problem - the people who keep these animals as pets and breed them - before they can solve the overall issue.