The exotic pet trade — where do veterinary professionals fit in?

This month sees the release of One Click Away, a report compiled by Blue Cross pet charity and the Born Free Foundation, which looks at the online sale of exotic animals as pets. The report found that at any one moment across a sample of just six websites, there were around 25 000 adverts offering more than 120 types of exotic animals for sale online. Animals for sale included reptiles, exotic birds and primates. A key finding of the report is that current legislation is out of date and unable to effectively regulate the trade in exotic animals in the modern, internet age.

The wide availability of exotic species in the pet industry leads many people to mistakenly believe that wild animals are easy to keep. Non-domesticated birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles require, as an absolute minimum, captive conditions that are beyond the means of an inexperienced owner (or, quite frankly, most experienced owners) to provide.