Victims of the Exotic Pet Trade

Read the full story 5 Animals That are Victims of the Exotic Pet Trade
via One Green Planet

The wild at heart do not belong in a cage. Owning your own bird, hedgehog, lizard or monkey might seem striking, it might even add a certain color to your personality; but, it is wrong and unfair to keep an exotic animal in your home. No matter how you may try to replicate their environment, their natural instinct is to live in the wild, not amongst four brick walls. Some humans readily believe that they can provide all the care necessary to make exotic animals “happy” and feel “at home,” but the fact remains: wild animals belong in the wild.

Birds Rank #2
Ten to twenty percent of wild birds that are caught and confined to a small cage die because of the shock of losing their freedom. The next time you look at a bird in a cage, don’t just see the bird, see what the bird sees.

Imagine if someone stuck you in a tiny shower cubicle for the rest of your life; you can’t reach your arms or legs out fully and you cannot walk far. Would you call this a life?

Breeders claim birds bred in captivity protect the species, but the reality is one-third of all parrot species worldwide are close to extinction due to the exotic bird trade. Recent statistics show over150,000 parrots are smuggled into the U.S. every year. Birds should be in the sky, not in a prison.

Many diseases can be caught from keeping pet birds. The most common is the parrot fever which causes pneumonia. If the owner inhales dry dropping, they are far more likely to catch it.