Can an "Ease of Care" Labeling Scheme Help Exotic Pets?
Could a standardized grading scheme that rates pets from “easy” to “extreme” improve the welfare of exotic pets? A leopard gecko. Photo: Gaschwald / Shutterstock Exotic pets face many welfare issues, according to a new paper in the Journal of Veterinary Behavior by Clifford Warwick et al. The paper suggests a standardized scheme for rating the difficulty of caring for exotic pets that it is hoped will make people think twice about keeping pets with hard-to-meet environmental needs. What is an exotic pet? Exotic pets are unusual pets. Essentially they are animals that are not native to a particular area, and are not domesticated (or only semi-domesticated). Another definition of an exotic pet is anything that is not a cat or dog. That’s the approach taken by the Calgary Humane Society , for example. Whichever definition we choose, it means there are many exotic pets in North America. For example, most of the fish that are kept as pets are not native to Canada or the USA, which mean...