Exotic pets are everywhere on TikTok and Instagram: from tigers to parrots to turtles. They look cuddly or colorful or just plain odd—and may be illegal.

It has become so easy to buy unusual pets online that many would-be owners don’t realize that purchasing one may be harming the animals, conservation efforts, and potentially spreading zoonotic diseases, which, like rabies, COVID-19, and monkeypox, transfer from animal to human.

That is why the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, in partnership with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), is launching the Not a Pet campaign this fall.

“The messaging will not be, ‘don’t buy an exotic pet,’” said Sara Walker, AZA’s senior advisor on wildlife trafficking. “The messaging will be ‘be informed about exotic pets.’”

Just as pet ownership in general has grown over the years, so has ownership of exotic pets. Some 68 percent of all U.S. households own pets and in 2016, more than 13 percent of households owned an exotic pet, a 25 percent increase from 2011, according to research conducted in 2019 for IFAW by Brooke Tully, a behavior change consultant, 

Although even legal exotic pets can pose many challenges—taking care of them can often be expensive, time-consuming, and even dangerous—the focus of the AZA campaign is on animals that may be unlawfully removed from their natural habitat or illegally sold for pets. The campaign will also draw attention to the potential spread of zoonotic diseases by this activity, Walker said.

Between 2014 and 2019, 48,793 individual live specimen that were refused clearance by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service needed care and placement. The majority of those were reptiles but included everything from coral to mammals.

“These were not all destined for the pet trade, but we can assume a significant number of them were,” said Walker.

The Not a Pet campaign will highlight a number of the more commonly traded pets that could be illegal, such as eastern box and slider turtles, small mammals including spider monkeys and sugar gliders (a type of possum), iguanas and lizards, and songbirds and Macaws.

Removing the animals from their natural habitat can be traumatic in and of itself, but many also die in transit. They may not be fed to keep them quiet and are concealed in a variety of ways: birds have been transported in hair curlers and turtles stuffed in socks; turtles have also been duct-taped so they can’t emerge from their shells.

“A trafficker will take far more animals than they know will ever make it to market because they know, the odds are they’re going to lose a lot in transit,” said Cynthia Mead, executive vice-president of external affairs and programming for Zoo New England (Franklin Park Zoo in Boston, Mass. and Stone Zoo in Stoneham, Mass.). “It’s horrible for the animals.”

Although there are a number of reasons for the rise in exotic pet ownership, photos and videos of them scattered all over social media no doubt plays a large role. In addition, “anything in the entertainment realm feeds it,” said Tully. For example, the hit show Tiger King may have turned off some people to owning a tiger—but may also have encouraged others.

[Related story: Tiger King and the Cruelty of Private Ownership of Wild Animals]

“It starts to create the notion that even if I don’t want this, people are doing it—it lowers the barrier of it being strange,” said Tully. “It desensitizes people.”

While individual zoos and aquariums and AZA itself have publicized the topic over the years, this is the first time AZA is putting together a campaign about the issue of this magnitude, said Walker. Besides partnering with IFAW, it is also piloting with three AZA-accredited zoos: Cleveland Metroparks Zoo in Cleveland, Ohio; Los Angeles Zoo in Los Angeles, Calif.; and Zoo New England.

“We are really excited,” said Jake Owens, Los Angeles’s Zoo’s director of conservation. Located in a metropolitan area that has a mix of wealthy people and shipments coming from around the world, his Zoo’s teams often have to travel to the airport or port for confiscated animals.

The goal, he said, is not to be negative but realistic in terms of how hard it can also be to take care of an exotic pet, even one that is legal.

Highlighting certain species, the aim will be to provide guests with information that encourages them to appreciate and enjoy the animals at the Zoo, “but avoid contributing to the conservation threats that they face out in the wild. We’ll have signage up that that can point them to online resources and help them make decisions that promote the conservation of the species.”

One of the stories Zoo New England will focus on is of the nearly 100 eastern box turtles taken from the wild that were confiscated last year by U.S. Fish and Wildlife while in route to Asia. Zoo New England, along with the New England Aquarium in Boston, Mass., and Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, R.I., were called in to help the turtles, many of whom were sickly and dehydrated from being shoved together in one box without food or water and packed tight inside socks to muffle their sound.

After being rescued, many of the turtles began showing signs of the deadly ranavirus, which is a painful and infectious disease. Because of that, the turtles could not be returned to the wild, kept in zoos or aquariums, or adopted. Eventually, they were given to a university laboratory to further study ranavirus.

Zoo New England will put together a comprehensive outreach program, including educating in schools about the impact of the illegal pet trade and training volunteer interpreters so they’re more versed on the issue when interacting with guests.

Kym Gopp, conservation curator at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, said one of the difficulties is making wildlife conservation “relevant in a way that’s empowering.” But, she added, the focus on exotic pet trade can prove more meaningful and immediate to people, she added.

“Most people do care about animal welfare,” said Gopp. The Not a Pet campaign can provide animal lovers with actions they can take to help save species that might otherwise die when taken out of the wild.

“We want to get people in a position to address an issue they might not even realize is an issue,” she said.

One of the many complications in this area, said Danielle Kessler, director of IFAW’s U.S. office, is that it is tricky for a consumer to differentiate one species that may be legal from another that may not be.

[Related story: Why Wild Animals Don't Make Good Pets]

For example, she said, “there has been a significant trade in freshwater turtles, and as one species is depleted, traders will move to another.” The same issue arises with birds, she said. In addition, a species may be protected differently if it is bred in captivity or not, and sellers aren’t always truthful about where their supplies originate from, she added.

In addition, “one of the biggest challenges is how confusing it is for consumers to navigate what they can or can’t own,” said Tully, who is not involved in the AZA campaign. “It can be different where you live than where you’re buying from and you might not know it’s illegal. The regulatory framework is very complex.”

Part of the campaign will be to urge people to fully understand where an animal comes from.

“There are a lot of assumptions that a pet show or online dealer is legitimate,” said Tully, but that’s not necessarily true. Wildlife trafficking doesn’t just take place in an alley or on the dark web.

“I was astounded how much of this is out there in the open.”

And there is no one place consumers can go to discover if a business is on the up and up.

In trying to determine if a pet-seller is legal, Kessler said, be aware if the seller seems to discount the importance of where the animal came from or wants to take the message outside a public-facing forum, where it can’t be scrutinized.

“Sometimes it’s just a gut check,” she added.

Besides targeting prospective exotic pet owners, the campaign also wants to educate those who have no intention of owning one but—with no ill-intent—happily share online photos of animals that might be illegal. The hope is that, through education, users might think and pause before passing on those photos.

The campaign, said Owens, is “another example of zoos, utilizing the animals that people are coming to see to message about something that impacts both wildlife conservation and humans.”

---

Back to All Stories