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According to a report by the UK newspaper The Observer, countries in Southeast Asia are being drained of their wildlife species to fuel the exotic-pet trade, particularly in Europe and Japan.
'Empty forest syndrome' is what researchers are calling the damaged habitats left behind by the exotic animal business. "There's a lot of forest where there are just no big animals left," Chris Shepherd, of the wildlife trade monitoring group Traffic, told The Observer. "There are some forests where you don't even hear birds."
Criminal gangs control a lot of the wildlife trade, Shepherd said, and the kidnapped creatures often wind up in cages or aquariums in the homes of European families who are unaware of how they were acquired.
While hundreds of millions of these exotic animals may be have been taken illegally, they aren't the only threat to these natural habitats. There is also a brisk legal trade in exotic pets contributing to this empty forest problem. More than 35 million animals who were lawfully exported out of Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries in the last ten years, The Observer reported. Of those, 30 million were taken from the wild.
Turtles, lizards, snakes, birds and macaque monkeys are among the most common species plucked from the forests of Southeast Asia. Seahorses and coral are removed in great numbers from the region's oceans.
In the U.S., responsible pet owners are (rightfully) quick to condemn puppy mills and other unsavory sources of dogs and cats. But few probably realize where their exotic snakes, geckos and aquarium fish may be coming from. It's time to start paying attention.
What do you think Paw Nation? Do you believe exotic animals should be pets? Or should they be left in the wild?
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