The Pros And Cons Of Petting Zoos

Animals by nature are meant to be in the wild. This is their natural habitat where they roam freely, reproduce naturally, and eat habitually. There are many instances in which the relationship between exotic animals and a human end up with an injury or a fatality. For example. in Texas a four-year-old is mauled by a mountain lion his aunt kept as a pet, in Connecticut a 55-year-old woman’s face permanently disfigured by her friend’s lifelong pet chimpanzee, and in Nebraska a 34-year-old man strangled to death by his pet snake. These are just the smallest of signs showing exotic animals should not be domesticated. All of these owners thought their relationship with the animals were stable, but the fact is these animals are wild and unpredictable.

Exotic animal domestication should be prohibited because of the black market trade it facilitates which in turn increases susceptibility to diseases transmitted and injuries by these animals, also the indigenous species here are invaded by these new exotic animals.
Exotic animal trade is a huge facilitator to the black market industry. The trade is the fifth largest contraband trade, ranking just after narcotics. Excluding illegal trade in timber and fisheries, it nets an estimated $10 billion per year. The money gone into this only helps promotes more fraudulent activity. Animals are sold over the internet and trade magazines from reasons to being a common household pet, or to entertain large masses at a circus.
Some exotic animals are bred in captivity, but most are taken from their native homeland, which has led to the dramatic decrease in wildlife populations by a whopping 52 percent since 1970. Elephants and rhinos are two stark examples of this. From 1998 to 2011, demand for ivory, which now fetches about $1,000 per pound, increased by 300 percent (Nuwer 3). In 2007, 13 rhinos were poached in South Africa; in 2011, that figure spiked to more than 1,000. Rhino horn, despite being the medicinal equivalent of eating fingernails or hair, now fetches its weight in gold about $30,000 per pound (4). If that business continues as normal, rhinos will be extinct by 2020.
The problem with exotic animal trade is that even though some states prohibit it, the law enforcement does nothing to ensure it is being carried out. This happens worldwide and also makes it easy to smuggle animals. The Thai capital, is a major hub for the orangutan trade.
Endangered chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas and bonobos are disappearing from the wild in large numbers because of the high demand for exotic wildlife. “The conditions in which the animals are shipped is usually brutal be=cause it’s illegal activity. In February 2005, customs officials at the Nairobi airport seized a large crate that had arrived from Egypt. The crate held six chimpanzees and four monkeys, stuffed into tiny compartments” (Sampson 4.)
Animals in bad packaging are not the only things coming over, but also their diseases. Because most of the animals are coming from their native homeland, they are also bringing many diseases along with them. These diseases range from monkeypox to chytrid which is a type of fungus which only infects frogs and is notable for its mass wiping of frog species. Bringing these species to the United States will increase the susceptibility to the native species here and may cause extinctions.
Petting zoos, where children are allowed to approach and feed captive wildlife and domestic animals, have been linked to several zoonotic outbreaks.

An E. coli outbreak even happened in North Carolina. In 2004, 187 people who attended the North Carolina State Fair became ill with E. coli infections. “15 with hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a complication of E. coli infection that can lead to kidney failure, central nervous system impairment, and death” (Noah 8). In response to the E. coli outbreak, Duke University’s Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy issued an analysis report regarding government regulation of petting zoos.

Most emerging infectious diseases today are zoonotic; zoonosis is a disease that can be transmitted from animals to people or, more specifically, a disease that normally exists in animals but that can infect humans. Approximately 60% of all human pathogens are zoonotic. The animals that can transfer these diseases do not even have to be the wildest of them. It can be simply goats, sheeps, pigs, cats, and dogs who transfer these fatal diseases which can cause

epidemics.
For example, the swine flu, was at first a human outbreak, but then later came through another virus strain in pigs-- and it recently came back to India. “At least 52 deaths have been recorded in Gujarat from August to mid-October, while Chattisgarh, Maharashtra and Telengana have begun to see a rise in numbers. In Nagpur, eight deaths have been recorded in November alone (Aldhous 4.) Disease transmission should be an inmportant factor in whether to consider the enforcing and prohibiting of exotic animal domestication. When outbreaks of human disease can be pinned to the wildlife trade, imports may be banned, but by then it may be too late. Epidemics and Pandemics can spread very easily throughout a country yet alone the world. A previous example is the black plague that took place during medieval times which killed off over 25 million people. Animals themselves may also inflict damage onto people purposefully due to the tensions and anxiety from being in new places and away from their homelands. “Shoemaker argues that most incidents involving injuries or deaths with exotic animals occur on the property where the animals are kept and involve people who choose to be with the animals.” (Ruthart 5). The animals cannot help the environments they are exposed to due to being trafficked across the country. They are naturally going to be tense and uneasy when put in a whole new habitat. In 2009, a 2-year-old Florida girl was strangled by a 12-foot-long Burmese python, a family pet that had gotten out of its aquarium; however, humans expect them to make exceptional house pets, or they use them when they are young in order to attract crowds for money and other ill purposes.
The animals being trafficked are the real victims in this crisis. being stripped away from your parent, forced into uncomfortable living conditions, and not being able to roam where you naturally belong would put stress on any human being yet alone an animal. “Conservationists say most captured wild animals die before reaching a buyer” (Bergman 2.)
The last threat that exotic animals pose is that they are invasive species. If they have to be exported to a different country that means they are not native to that country. The indigenous species there can then become vulnerable to habitat loss or even extinction due to these new organisms. For example, birds are one of the largest contraband exotic animals traded, about 2-5 million a year. Non-migratory birds are more likely to establish themselves in a new environment but once established, the migrants are more likely to spread. Meaning once these exotic birds come they will spread in that habitat making it harder for the natives

to compete for natural resources and such when they come to that habitat. This graphs shows the increase in the number of traded birds per year since 1990 to 2015. The demand for birds have to been rising ever since and makes it easy for criminals to trade this contraband.
Invasive species can disturb the natural order in habitats which can cause many other things to go wrong; such as, the food chain within the ecosystem to become unbalanced.

An invasive species that can do just that. One has appeared in Florida’s Everglades National Park, and it is the Burmese python. This python is native to southeast Asia, but has somehow made it’s way across the Atlantic ocean into the United State’s backyard. “The guy in my headlights is already bigger than any other snake in North America, yet it's a mere pipsqueak by its own standards. It may live 25 years and reach 20 feet in length. It can achieve the girth of a telephone pole; it can dine on full-grown deer” (McGrath 4.) Likewise, Western species pop up in the East. The red-eared slider turtle, native to the Mississippi Basin, has been shipped all over the world as a pet and for food. The turtle is spreading across Asia and southern Europe, devouring native frogs, mollusks, and even birds. This shows how devastating a non-native species can be to the environment all for the simple fact that someone wanted it as a

pet.
No one knows how invasive the Burmese python will be, but consider the case of the brown tree snake, a native of New Guinea and Australia. A few of them stowed away aboard military equipment after World War II and disembarked on the island of Guam. There they found no brown tree snake enemies and no brown tree snake rivals and tens of thousands of birds that had never known a terrestrial predator. In this land of milk and honey the snakes have multiplied exponentially, reaching densities of up to 13,000 a square mile. “Their venomous bites account for a disquieting number of emergency room visits; their climbing habits have caused more than 2,000 electrical outages; and 8 of Guam's 11 native forest bird species have been wiped out” (McGrath 8.) Some alien species are beneficial. Most agricultural plants and animals in North America are aliens Japanese oysters and clams are mainstays of the shellfish industry worldwide. But some transplants have an outsize effect on the ecosystems into which we deliver them
Overall, susceptibility to diseases transmitted and injuries by these animals are huge factors in promoting the prohibition of their domestication; also, the indigenous species losing their habitat which is caused by the fostered black market trade of these exotic animals should all be reasons why exotic animal domestication should be banned.