Are you for or against the housing of wild and large animals?

I don’t have a problem with private sanctuaries if they’re well-maintained and designed for the animals’ benefits. But weird people who just want to have lions as pets and train their chimps to drink wine and wear diapers…

I mean, don’t get me wrong. There is nothing I would love more than to have a pet polar bear and a couple of pet snow lions. So I sympathize with the desire, but at the end of the day it’s harmful to both the people and aminals involved.

Two words: Zanesville, Ohio.

@Mariah Two words good. One link even better!

Coloma has no room to talk. She has wild geese in captivity.

@Dutchess_III Here ya go.

Wild and exotic animals in the wrong hands of fanciers that are ego driven and ignorant is a recipe for disaster.

I believe that 99% of people that wish to keep wild animals are doing so for the cool factor and have no true interest in the animals welfare.

I think it should be 100% illegal to own any large and dangerous animal.

Certain species like camels, zebras and other hooved animals are one thing, but, primates, carnivores, and poisonous reptiles are another.

I just saw an article on my home page this morning about a Python that tried to eat a baby. I didn’t read it, just saw the headline.

I think the laws in certain states are atrocious and lend themselves to disaster and carnage for both humans and animals.

@Dutchess lll Nope. They are domestic White Chinese geese. ;-)

Ah…Illegal Alien Geese! That’s even worse @Coloma!

@Mariah O, I remember that. How horrible.

I think there is a time and a place for housing wild animals…if they’re sick or injured. I think that it should be illegal for the average person to be able to own big cats, chimpanzees and stuff.

There are more tigers kept as pets in the US than there are living in the wild. I know this does’nt answer the question I just think its such an interesting fact I thought I’d mention it.

@Dutchess_III haha, no they are american born chinese geese.
Hey, when I was traveling in Asia is 2010 I saw a pair of brown chinese geese in terrible conditions on a small, run down, Taiwanese farm. In a crappy dirt pen, no clean water, no shade, dirty and damaged feathers. I so wanted to bring those guys back to live the spoiled California goose lifestyle at my place. lol

I’m with @Qingu and @Coloma. Sure I’d love to have my own panther, but these just aren’t the type of animals that should be kept in captivity. I don’t even like the thought of wild animals in zoos.
And even if they are tamed and respond to the owner’s commands, doing this probably requires you to break something in the animal, which can only make it more dangerous and unpredictable in the end. Wild animals that don’t have human interaction as a part of their evolution should be left alone. I remember hearing about a circus elephant (and elephants have had lots to do with humans for centuries) who went haywire, busted out into the street and started stampeding all over the place. Until it was shot, of course.
Big cats are cool, but seriously, do I even want to sleep in the same place with one of the world’s most efficient predators? Fuck no.
Everytime I see pictures of dudes walking leopards and wolves on leashes, I sure hope they get jumped some day, haha.

@Symbeline Good post. Hell, housecats can get all wacky on you when they’re just having fun, but a panther having fun can kill you. So, yeah. You’d have to break something in the animal. : (

I think each state needs more licensing and certification.
There does need to be rescues and havens, but owning wild beasts is not really possible. There is an animal KINGDOM, and all the training in the world, can not delete their instincts.

If you are owning these beasts for pride, then karma comes back upon them. In most cases.

It is sheer vanity that these animals can be kept by novice animal ‘lovers’. Dumb. Moronic. Law needs to be changed. It is not safe, not least of all, for the animals.

My neighbors have 2 rescue camels from a circus rescue in my area. A rescue and haven for ex “performance” animals. They are well cared for, and I support the organization.

The Camels are are a novelty in my neighborhood, they are housed in a huge, like 10 acre pasture and get lots of attention. My personal exotic desire would be Vietnamese Water Buffalos. lol

We also have a local wildlife “zoo” that houses native, non-releasable species, such as birds of prey, black bears and cougars.

A fatal cougar attack in the 90’s in my community that killed a woman, resulted in the female cougars only cub being placed in this refuge after she was killed for her fatal attack on the jogger.

I’m a mountain lion advocate and would never report any sightings unless people or animals were at risk. People up here flip out when their is a cougar sighting, they find it more upsetting to think of being killed by a lion than a sociopath. lol

” Willow” the male cougar cub was a local celebrity for years in our community. :-)

I want a couple of elephants

If the owner knows what they are doing and knows the animals well, it’s fine. It’s the idiots owning something they don’t understand that results in the tragedies, usually at the animal’s expense.

@Adirondackwannabe It really isn’t fine. No one can predict what a wild animal might suddenly do, for no reason. Not even people who “know what they’re doing.”
There is a preserve here in Kansas called the Caney Zoo. They take in wild animals, big cats, from people who finally realize they can’t handle it. The people who run Caney Zoo know what they are doing. They used to have a deal where the kids could get their Senior pictures taken with one of their tame Bengal tigers. It was fine for about 5 years, then suddenly, and for no apparent reason, the cat turned on a girl who was getting her picture taken with him, and killed her.

@Dutchess_III You just confirmed what I said. I don’t care how tame something is considered, it’s still a very dangerous animal and we can’t read it’s mind. You don’t mix Tigers and people.

I am 100% against it, and believe the people that keep these dangerous animals as pets are mentally ill.

LOL! I’ll tell my husband you said that @FutureMemory!!!! : ) He has had big cats in the past….after his experience, he doesn’t think it’s a good idea either.

@Qingu nailed it from the beginning. If you’re actually trained and going to provide a legitimate sanctuary for these animals I’m all for it. But as far as keeping these animals at home by people who are generally untrained but “know what they’re doing” I’m completely against it. Though I’m really against anyone owning an animal at all, regardless of size if they don’t know what they’re doing. I feel that unless you can give that animal as good a life as it would have had in the wild you shouldn’t ever even consider owning one.

One time at the pet store I worked at two guys came in with their newly acquired pet from the reptile show. They had a baby caiman, cute,right ? People never consider what the hell they’re going to do when it grows up .

@uberbatman

I agree, and, this goes for the countless small pets that are neglected and starved and left to live in horrible conditions, after the novelty wears off. Hermit crabs, rats, mice, hamsters, gerbils..etc. Poor little things. :-(

@Coloma yea… That was one of the harder parts about working at a pet store. I saw first hand how often people just neglected their animals. People seem to be the worst with fish. “Ehh its just a fish, whatever, ill just get another if it dies” People really suck sometimes.

@uberbatman

I know, my daughter just got two half dead hermit crabs from some idiot at her work that was feeding them adult food they couldn’t eat yet and refused to crush it up and go the extra mile. My daughter finally talked her into giving her the little guys and they are doing well after a few weeks of decent and informed care.

I love pet rats, I haven’t had one in years but I used to have so much fun creating rat habitats and feeding them everything they loved. I’d make rat TV dinners every night from our dinner foods. lol

Once, a friend gave me a cockatiel that lived in a cage with a Diamond dove, the poor dove, the cockatiel had chewed it’s feathers up and pooped all over the poor dove who was stuck on the bottom of the cage with no perch.
The water bowl was green with algae and had about 1/8th of an inch of disgusting poop water in it, and their food dish was nothing but seed husks.
I saved them in the nick of time.
I hate animal neglect!

Okay..I’m going off on a rant, I’m done now.

My girlfriend has a pet rat. Such fun cute little animals.

You just wonder HOW some people can do that to their animals…leave their dogs tied up all day, no shelter, rain, snow, mud….what are they thinking???

The Panther

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly—. An image enters in,
rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.

Rainer Maria Rilke

I live in Ohio. If I wasn’t absolutely certain that people shouldn’t own these animals before that massacre, I am damn sure now.

Against it, 100 %.

@Ayesha I’m with you!!

Against.

I’m kind of both. I believe that any person that wants to own a wild animal should have to get some sort of training on how to take care of the animal, and keep enclosure regulations. They should also have to be checked up on once in a while to make sure they’re taking good care of the animal.
Also I don’t like the idea of taking a healthy animal out of the wild just to be put in a cage. I think the only wild animals that should be kept are rescued from an otherwise deadly situation such as the mother abandoning her babies. And if it was my decision I’d also say only endangered or threatened species should be rescued, because you can’t rescue all the animals that need help. That would just mess up the food chain!

@Mariah I just watched that clip you posted. Horrific stuff. I am against it 100% and cannot understand why anyone would think it’s okay to take a wild animal out of their natural habitat for their own satisfaction. It makes me feel sick just thinking about.
It’s one of the most foolish things a person can do.