There’s a whole interesting discussion of pet wolves in this thread, which is where I pulled the link to that article from.
I’ve got to speak up to support valleyofthedolls’ post. Wolves do not domesticate well. Not for the average owner, at least. Many, many, many wolf hybrid dogs end up having to go to shelters because as they age past adolescence they often become major behavioral problems for all but the most expert handlers to keep. And, for the most part, expert handlers don’t get wolf hybrids because they know the trouble they’d be buying into.
Pure breed wolves are even more likely to make piss poor companion animals.
I’m honestly not too thrilled with the idea of even the smaller exotic pets that the OP specifically excepted. I think skunks, ferrets, and other smaller ‘cute’ chique pet species are neat animals. I do not believe that, absent great good fortune, they will make good pets. As the OP mentioned, cats and dogs have had thousands of years of selective breeding to adapt them to human behaviors. These other species, even if they’re unlikely to be able to cause the kind of damage of a bear or large cat, are often just accidents waiting to happen.
I’ve heard of several cases where large cats have hurt or killed their owners/handlers or the children of their owners/handlers. To my mind, the most infuriating story I’d ever heard was from the Minneapolis-St.Paul Star Tribune in 2003. (My original link to the story has long since expired.) It didn’t end in tragedy, but only through sheer blind luck, and the diligence of the teachers involved. A student was found to be falling asleep in class. When his teacher asked him what the problem was, the answer was along the lines of, “The tiger cub keeps trying to make me play with him at night.” It turned out that the boy’s parents were keeping a tiger cub in the same room with their boy. And they were under feeding the tiger cub. The boy had scratches all over from the cub, because of it’s play. I really worry what would have happened when the cub finally got hungry. What the Hell kind of moron do you have to be to let your tiger cub chew on your child?
There is a chain of furniture stores here that used to use a couple of tigers in their ads. Every now and then, they’d haul one of the tigers to a store and let people get their photos taken.
I haven’t seen them in a while. Perhaps they realized how truly dangerous it was. (Come to think of it, I haven’t seen the owner in an ad in a while either. Hmm.)
But…but…I want an elephant. And a polar bear. And a peguin. And some meerkats. And an albino tiger. And some bats.
Is that so much to ask?
What happened to just wanting a pony? For Chrissakes, we’ll get you the pony!
My brother had a friend (who’s since died, of old age) who had the following animals as “pets”: Bears, peacocks, turkeys, deer, and raccoons. I put pets in quotes because while he considered them to be pets, he was smart enough to know that the bears and deer were dangerous animals and was careful around them. Nor were they allowed to roam free, but kept in cages. He also didn’t have them because he woke up one morning and thought, “You know, I think I’d like to have a bear/deer/whatever as a pet.” The bears were rescued as cubs after their mother died and the state wildlife authorities weren’t interested in saving for some reason, as were the deer and coons.
While I can see the perspective of those who think that the only animals we should have as pets are those that have been domesticated over the centuries, I’m not all that opposed to people having more exotic animals as pets. Too many species in the world have gone extinct, and if someone having an animal as a pet keeps that species alive, then I’ve no problem with it at all. Much better to have lemurs as pets, than to not have any lemurs at all.
Here’s the thing. I am not opposed to private ownership of exotic animals, in part for the reason you give: since we have destroyed much of the habitat in which they live, it seems to me we have some responsibility to either coexist or arrange matters so the animals can live apart from us. Even the non-sexy ones. (Though I will say that my resolve on this was tested by encountering the Japanese Irimote Cat, a fouler tempered beast I have never met and I understand why they are not popular in the area to which they are native.) Still. Even the Japanese Irimote cat is entitled to exist in its foul tempered way.
But I object strongly to having them as pets. I wish someone more articulate could help me out with this, because I think I am not being clear. But having a ward is not the same as having a pet. I liked having wild animals as wards, I enjoyed the relationship. My cats loved me and I loved them. We spent a lot of time together and I certainly spent a lot of money on them. But it is not the same as having a pet, and it shouldn’t be.
Did she notice?
Sorry.
Anyway, to add more than a sick joke, there was an exotic animal incident in my home town (a fairly densely populated suburb of Boston) about ten years ago. Anthony Ferrari, a local resident, reported that his banded Egyptian cobra, Tut, had escaped. It seems Ferrari had brought Tut outside to sun himself on the front lawn one August day, but he slithered away while his owner wasn’t looking.
The town immediately went into an uproar, especially since the surrounding area is all residences and public parks with lots of kids playing outside all day. After a month or so of searching, no sign of Tut was found, and most people figured he’d either died or had never existed in the first place (Ferrari was a model and aspiring actor, and some theorized he made up the story to get his name and face in the news).
Three months after his disappearance, however, Tut turned up. Inside a freaking fourth-grade classroom full of kids!. It seems that as the weather turned cooler, Tut found a place that was warm and had a fair number of mice running around to eat (did I mention that his moron owner lived right across the street from an elementary school?), so he settled there until one day he crawled out into the open, perhaps to investigate all those little two-legged things thumping and bumping about. Fortunately, nobody was bitten, otherwise Ferrari would be facing a much harsher punishment than the $5000 fine he ended up with.
Oh sure, you’ll make room in your home for lemurs, but what about the dromedary jumping slug? No doubt they’d love the moist, friendly environment inside the folds of your shower curtain.
(Actually, I’m one of those people who’d sincerely keep these things around if given the opportunity. I mean, it’s a SLUG that JUMPS! How cool is that? Everyone expects lemurs to jump, but a slug?! “Oh my goodness gracious, is that a slug over therFWAPAAAAUUGGHHH!!!”).
Conservation is a shaky justification for keeping exotics as pets. Zoos typically have some sort of Species Survival Plan for keeping their captive stock of endangered animals as fit as possible. Animals from the pet trade typically can’t contribute to that population, since their history is impossible to verify. Often, pet breeding is percieved as working at cross purposes to animal conservation in many respects, whether through hybridization of wild species, enhancement of domestic traits and general inbreeding, or just by increasing demand for endangered species through the illegal pet trade.
If, by some miracle, Madagascar ever does get its act together and establishes a permanently secure habitat for their lemurs, it won’t do any good if the captive populations have been crossbred into Miniature Blue-furred Chinchilla Glow-in-the-dark Lemurs in the meantime.
Nitpick: Ferrets are domestic animals.
Now, on to the jumping slugs. How high/far can they jump? Will they thrive on salad and a little oatmeal, like your average land snail? I successfully kept many different kinds of snails as a boy, and had faith that Climby and Speedy were just estivating when my science teacher was certain they had died. I may want one, too. I’ll just tell coffeespouse he followed me home. 
Cough, Cough. What’s your point regarding this thread? Or were you just showing everyone a picture?
I hate to see extinction of any species (except maybe those jumping slugs…) but I don’t think that conservation is something that should be in the hands of the average Joe or Jane. I think that’s what zoo breeding programs are for, with resources, money, vets, etc.
Zoos certainly have changed a lot over the years, from being exhibits for amusement only to doing serious work on countering extinction and education.
The tiger has now been euthanised.
But even zoos admit that they don’t have enough money and resources to protect as many species as are in danger. I’ll be the first to admit that turning some species into pets is far from an ideal solution, but it is better than the alternative of letting them go extinct.
You assume that zoos want the job and have infinite capacity and resources, neither of which is true. I assume you are referring to large, public (and publically funded) zoos – I mean technically, my little conservatory with a capacity of six animals under 50 pounds was a zoo but nobody would actually have called it that. I think technically, Tiger Haven in Tennessee is a zoo but it is, in essence, private ownership of exotics.
If I thought it would keep exotics out of the hands of irresponsible nimrods I would be opposed to it, too. But I don’t think that’s the real effect of a ban.
Recently a Toronto resident lost his Indian cobra in his apartment building. They pulled the place apart and couldn’t find it, so they had to condemn the building.
It was never found. They said “well, it probably died in the winter.” Probably.
Indian cobras are actually relatively docile, but I sure as hell ain’t renting a room there.
My hometown has two malls, the sort-of-good one and the crappy one. The crappy one invited a professional photographer to set up a kiosk. The name of the business was “Goldilocks and her Bears.” Three live performing bears. And a cub. Between shows, a toddler was allowed to have his picture taken with the bears.
Anyone want to guess the end of the story?
Some people are really, really stupid.
There are a lot of large pet snakes out there. Some of them kill their owners.
Some even eat hippos or electric blankets.
What a lot of people don’t realise is that wild animals do not put up with shit the same way their first dog did. Everyone’s heard the story of a mother putting honey on her child’s face so a black bear would become part of a photo opportunity…for the coroner.
The woman who got out of her safari van (note: there is a VERY good reason why park rangers say implicitly to NEVER get out of the van) to rearrange three lion cubs so she could take a better photo. Someone never got the memo about how this is the wild and these lions will eat you. Happily in fact.
Also, I tried googling for a link for the second one and am out of luck. If anyone manages to find it, I’d be most grateful!