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Most exotic animals seen on the pet trade

Discussion in 'Private Collections & Pets' started by animalszoos, 19 Mar 2017.

  1. TheMightyOrca

    TheMightyOrca Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    When I was a kid I went to a pet store that sold caimans, though there was a sign saying that they were only sold for educational purposes, so I guess you could only buy them for a zoo or for research or something. I hear a local pet store has caimans that anyone can buy. (but maybe you need a permit, I'm not sure)

    This one pet store I went to would get exotic animals regularly. They had prairie dogs for a little while, apparently those sold out very quickly. They also had a marmoset and some kind of lemur, I can't remember the species, and coati.
     
  2. Hyak_II

    Hyak_II Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    Hands down the most exotic thing I've ever seen for sale on the private market were short beaked echidnas. At over 10 grand a pop they were not cheap. South American Sea Lions would be a close second for me.

    Also on the note of Blue Ringed Octopus, I work part time at an aquarium store and we very frequently have them available on our lists from the indo pacific. They are cheap (less than 2 dollars cost). The main issue is their extremely potent venom, followed by their short life spans and need for an escape proof tank. They are also fairly small and tend to hide most of the time.

    Also, they do not make for good mixed tanks at all. Whoever says that is straight up lying or terribly misinformed. They will kill virtually anything housed with them. Fish, crabs, snails, shrimp, etc...They generally leave coral and sponges alone though.
     
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  3. Armchair Safari

    Armchair Safari New Member

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    I live in an urban neighbourhood in Manchester (think estates full of terraced houses) and it's surprising some of the animals people have kept as pets.
    In the 70's there was a family who bought a lion cub, named him Ceaser and it used to play in their garden with a Yorkshire Terrier. Was rehomed to one of the Safari Parks when the law changes came in over here.
    One of the local cattery owners had a Eurasian Lynx in the mid 90's, was kept in a large cage with run at the far end of the place. no idea what happened to it.
    Been a few incidents of exotic birds turn up yet none being reported missing from anywhere inc a flamingo and a Sacred Ibis. Sadly it's quite bad here for exotics, many end up in rescues as folk don't know how to or cant care for them adequately. I've seen marmosets in Manchester pet shops and squirrel monkeys. I have seen sugar gliders, ground squirrel, long eared hogs, tenrec, pouched rats, coati, opossum, skunks and racoons either in shops or as pets. The sale of smaller creatures especially exotic rodents is very much on the increase.
    Don't even get me started on aquatic species, places selling alsorts of things that imo you should never consider keeping as they are 'tank busters' of the sort that the average person could not house when they start to grow.
     
    Last edited: 10 Apr 2017
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  4. animalszoos

    animalszoos Well-Known Member

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    I've seen a giraffe and 2 African elephants for sale on the US zoo animal sale website.
     
  5. birdsandbats

    birdsandbats Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    I have seen a Fossa for sale.
     
  6. FBBird

    FBBird Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    Afraid this was just before your time limit, but I saw my first Margay in Harrods around 1970.
    Palmer's Pet Shop in Camden Town was the source of quite a few well known zoo animals. I always rather regret not buying a Caracara in there. I did have quite a few birds and some fairly unusual turtles (Melanochelys trijuga) from there though.
     
  7. Dassie rat

    Dassie rat Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    The most interesting animal I saw there was a jerboa. There was also a large collection of reptiles on the first floor. Cold Blooded in Rainham also has a good collection of reptiles. When I made my first visit, the collection included a crocodile, an alligator and a caiman, but not all of these were for sale. ttps://www.allinlondon.co.uk/directory/1291/87805.php
     
  8. Canihelpyou?

    Canihelpyou? Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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  9. Canihelpyou?

    Canihelpyou? Well-Known Member 5+ year member

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    Forget what i just said, this is the craziest exotic pet. A zonkey!
    Zonkey filly
     
  10. elefante

    elefante Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    I've seen caimans, alligators, sulcata tortoises, poison arrow frogs, and toucans (can't remember the species). When I was a little kid I remember seeing monkeys (can't remember the species) on occaision, but I haven't seen those in years. Interestingly enough I've seen monkey chow for sale so they must still be sold somewhere.

    Though I've not personally seen it, I do know in Texas you can just about any type of hoofstock you want. Not a pet store I know.
     
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  11. Kakapo

    Kakapo Well-Known Member

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    I remember a lion cub in a now closed pet shop in my city, long years ago. And this year, a sloth (Linnaeus two-toed) in a german pet shop. About birds, maybe the most unusual passerines seen have been Bohemian waxwing and European hawfinch (both at same time in the same pet shop), and Yellow grosbeak and Village indigobird (also at same time in another pet shop)... scaled quail this year... Of course plenty of herptiles like poison dart frogs, and in fishes there are almost no limits on what's imported, so it's easy to see from picturesque dragonets to white-spotted boxfishes passing by freshwater moray eels, one of the most recently unusual fishes that I've seen for sale is pyramid butterflyfish. Maybe the most exotic insect I saw for sale is the rainbow stag beetle... and for crustaceans, probably the harlequin shrimp, that the shop staff discovered how to feed with a substitute food instead live starfishes!
     
  12. Zygodactyl

    Zygodactyl Well-Known Member

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    As someone who strongly supports the keeping of exotic pets, I have to agree with this. However I think that larger animals are to some degree self-limiting, since few people can afford to purchase one in the first place. Personally, I think that the large exotics are less an issue than the small to mid-sized ones you can get for a few thousand bucks. Parrots aren't usually seen as exotics, but parrot rescues tend to end up with a large number of macaws because they're relatively easy and cheap to obtain, but difficult and expensive to maintain, and the people who know enough to care for them properly usually know enough not to want them. (Well, except hyacinth macaws.) In Texas we have a similar issue with kinkajous and Old World monkeys, both of which are legal here and more work than they seem.

    I've come to the conclusion that the most sensible system would be a three-tiered one. On one tier are animals anyone can keep, which would include animals that are fairly easy to keep, fairly easy to rehome, somewhat hard to traumatize for life through improper care, and which don't pose a serious risk to the public. On the next tier would be most animals: those which are either easy to traumatize for life and/or hard to rehome, but which don't have extremely specialized care and don't pose a danger to the public. For this tier you need to pass a written test and demonstrate you have proper facilities and diet. Kinkajous, capuchins, and large parrots would all go in this tier. The sloth bear might too, actually: I'm not up on bears enough to know if captive sloth bears have caused the deaths of bystanders, but I know American black bears are fairly harmless.

    On the third tier are species which either pose a clear danger of death, disability, or disfigurement to the public, or which require care so specialized that the average person would not have time to care for them properly. For this tier you'd have the same requirements as Tier II qualifications and also have to have a certain amount of actual experience with that species or a close relative. This is because while I think that larger/more dangerous animals are less likely to have problematic owners, an irresponsible owner can be a bigger problem, not so much for society (dogs are still a much bigger threat) as for exotic pet keepers as a whole. One death from a tiger or venomous snake is enough to fuel hysteria across the country. And requiring hands-on experience with animals that would take specialized knowledge and several hours or work a day to care for properly just seems like common sense to me. It may seem like you're willing to spend six hours on this animal now, but maybe you should try it first.

    Of course while I think that this system is sensible, it would put large macaws on tier II and marmosets on tier I, and leave pretty much nobody happy. "Macaws are just birds, you shouldn't need any special license to keep them!" "Marmosets are primates, they're our close cousins, you shouldn't be keeping them at all!" And if I'm being consistent, large constricting snakes should go on tier III, because they're prone to escaping and have caused deaths when they've escaped, and that would really piss people off.

    I can't speak to the deer, but I've done a good deal of research into the proper care for all the rest of these. Once you've got a proper enclosure, turacos (except the great blue) and Old World fruit bats are actually fairly easy to care for; the hardest part is their diet. Marmosets are less work than many mid-sized parrots (and require a similar enclosure), they seem much less prone than Old World monkeys or even capuchins to ending up at sanctuaries. There's a reason that in jurisdictions which don't fall prey to the "ban all primates because they look like us!!1" impulse Callitrichids are always legal. Coatis are probably a bit less work than macaws or cockatoos, however they're reputedly prone to inflicting nasty bites. Of course so are larger parrots, but you won't have an issue if you understand their body language and the same thing might be true of coatis.

    Dwarf caimans aren't that weird. In jurisdictions that don't ban all crocodilians, dwarf caimans are the most common exception, even though American alligators are only slightly larger and much less temperamental.

    Prairie dogs aren't weird: they're easier to keep than many dog breeds. They are, however seasonal; they're only available as babies April-June. Ring-tailed lemurs are quite easy to find in Texas and not exceptionally difficult to care for (aside from needing a lot of space), though they can't be sold across state lines. I've also seen two species of ruffed lemurs for sale in Texas, but only a few states had large breeding populations of any species of lemur before the feds decided that the Endangered Species Act should apply to some (but not all) captive-bred specimens of animals not native to the US.

    Also, are you thinking of Sand's in Houston? I've never been but I frequently check their website. The most interesting animal I've seen them have is a brush-tailed bettong.
     
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  13. TheMightyOrca

    TheMightyOrca Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    No, this pet store was in League City, it went out of business years ago. I don't even remember what it was called, just where it was.

    I'm not opposed to the ownership of exotic pets, and I've heard that prairie dogs are pretty good. It's just that since they sold out so quickly, I'm concerned that they were impulse buys. (they were only a hundred bucks) Even easy to care for pets get neglected by owners who bought it on a whim. That problem isn't exclusive to exotic pets either, there's no shortage of domestic animals getting abandoned. Rabbits and chickens are often purchased as Easter pets and then get abandoned, and don't even get me started on huskies! Plus this store sold purebred puppies, and pet stores that do that pretty much always get those from puppy mills (differentiate this from pet stores that allow local shelters and rescues to show pets for adoption) so I'm not confident in their standards.

    Regarding your tier idea, I'd agree with putting large parrots on tier 2. They're incredibly high maintenance animals and they live a very long time. People would only complain because they grew up with media treating big parrots like pet animals and never actually looked into what it takes to keep one. Give 'em a parrot for a week and they'd be fed up with the destruction and screaming.

    The requirements to keep a raptor in the US are pretty hardcore, so I wouldn't be opposed to higher standards for keeping certain types of other animals.
     
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  14. Zygodactyl

    Zygodactyl Well-Known Member

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    I often check the local Craigslist listings for the heck of it, and I'd estimate that there's a prairie dog rehomed in the Austin area every two or three months. Less common than chinchillas, sugar gliders, or mid-sized parrots (much less domesticated animals), but I assume there's also fewer of them in circulation. One guy wanted to trade his prairie dog for a chinchilla, so impulse buy sounds about right in his case.

    I'm a bit sensitive of the topic of prairie dogs because they're probably the easiest reasonably common mammal not allowed in the state where I grew up (easier than chinchillas, which are legal). Both Massachusetts and Texas are inconsistent in what they ban and regulate, but Massachusetts is much more so. In Massachusetts all that is not legal is prohibited, and what's legal is basically anything that people lobbied to be legal when the ban was implemented. Thus bison and ostriches are totally legal without a permit, toco toucans and palm cockatoos too, but prairie dogs, bearded barbets, and mousebirds are all illegal and sugar gliders were illegal until 2013.
     
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  15. TheMightyOrca

    TheMightyOrca Well-Known Member 10+ year member

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    Yeah, prairie dogs aren't sold in major pet stores, so that really cuts down on impulse buying. (and buying in general, I guess) I don't think those stores sell sugar gliders, but those have more of an excitement/exotic appeal, and there are a bunch of online videos about OMG LOOK AT THIS GREAT PET so people are more likely to seek them out. But I won't be surprised if prairie dogs become the trendy pet of the week at some point.
     
  16. SealPup

    SealPup Well-Known Member

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    Irresponsible as it was, a Galeocerdo juvenile.
     
  17. Kakapo

    Kakapo Well-Known Member

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    :eek::eek: A species that not even any aquarium in the world can cept alive for long... sold as pet? Where?
    It reminded me a video of a Trachipterus trachypterus that has been shown in an aquarium shop in Japan, died two days after. It as probably a condemned animal anyway, lost near beach very far from his deep home.
     
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  18. SealPup

    SealPup Well-Known Member

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    I'm surprised you saw a Trachipterus, but I was more surprised to see a baby Galeocerdo. Unsolicited odds and ends do turn up in aquarium shipments, a few years ago there were a few cookiecutter sharks entering aquarium stores. They ought in theory to do well, save the temperature issue, and they probably like a circular tank. In practice, customers are unlikely to have the correct aquarium in advance for animals requiring specialist care.

    The tiger shark was very small and probably cut from his live mum (nasty). This is how most small-sized shark-type sharks still seem to enter the trade, only to die from stress. Whereas the horn, bamboo, epaulette etc sharks do better on arrival or hatching.
     
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  19. Kakapo

    Kakapo Well-Known Member

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    I didn't saw a Trachipterus (and never have been in Japan), I've just saw the video of it (it's in the net if you search).
     
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  20. SealPup

    SealPup Well-Known Member

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    Just about anything from deep water surfaces sometimes, if it can withstand our normal pressure. Often they are ill at the time, so maybe the pressure is medicinal when they do. Others such as nautiluses and cookiecutters do it regularly. Anyway, the deep water fauna do make it to aquarium stores when they are caught near the surface.