Exotic Animals: pets or not?

In the recent years, having parrots, reptiles, amphibians, rabbits, and small rodents as pets, became a popular trend. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that these non-domesticated animals, have special needs in captivity that many pet owners cannot provide, putting their welfare at risk. Furthermore, the behavior of these new companion animals may not correspond to owners’ expectations, leading, in some cases, to rehoming or carelessness.
In this paper, authors analyzed the suitability of different animals as pets, giving owners and veterinary professionals who are not so used to treat these species valuable advices.
There are numerous parrot species thus their aptness to be kept as companion animals vary. Still, there are several welfare concerns, like social isolation, flight restriction, poor diet and hand rearing that make it necessary to define clear and specie-specific legal guidelines for these animals. It is known that larger parrot species are the most susceptible to behavioral signs of poor welfare and psychological distress. Therefore, people need to be aware that due to their higher lifespan they may need to be rehomed several times.
The authors do not recommend reptiles and amphibians as suitable pets. In fact, various studies shown that more than a half of the reptile pets die within a year of acquisition, being the welfare issues in capture, transport, and husbandry the most significant factors for such a high mortality rate. The iInternet has a lot of information about how to take care of these animals but, unfortunately, almost none is based on evidence.
Domestic rabbits can be appropriate pets if the owners have knowledge about these animals’ health and husbandry needs. Some recommendations about the proper household and diet for these mammals can be found in the original article.
Guinea pigs and degus may also be suitable as companion animals but only if the owner/family invests time in learning about the specie particularities and requirements to ensure that there are conditions to guarantee welfare and to properly identify signs of disease.
This article highlights the current welfare concern about keeping exotic animals as pets, particularly when the owners are not aware of the species characteristics and, consequently, underestimate the difficulties of taking care of them. It is important to make reliable information available for future owners and continuously evaluate whether exotic animals should be kept as pets.

Grant, R.A.; Montrose, V.T.; Wills, A.P. ExNOTic: Should We Be Keeping Exotic Pets? Animals 2017, 7, 47. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani7060047