Approximately 75% of pet lizards, snakes, turtles, and tortoises die within the first year of becoming someone’s pet. Whether they’re obtained legally or not, keeping wild animals as pets supports cruelty toward animals. Did You Know? Exotic Pet Statistics: Lion, Tiger, and Big Cat Attacks and Fatalities in the United States (1990–2014) Author: Melissa A Smith. The following is a partial listing (778) of incidents in the U.S. involving captive exotic cats since 1990. In many cases the products that are tested on animals might not even prove effective for humans. They are many times kept isolated, face skin burns, broken spinal cord or experience the pain when a hole is drilled into their skull. Since this number also includes deaths occurring in zoos, this number is not worrisome at all for exotic pet owners, considering the statistical negligibility of 3.5 people among an American population of more than 316 million (as of 2013). They found that while many deaths from animal encounters are potentially avoidable, … The secret life (and death) of exotic pets. There are a lot more reasons not to own exotic pets -- it's impossible to reproduce its natural habitat, breeding difficulties, and more -- but perhaps death will deter some. By some estimates, a yearly average of 3.5 people die from exotic animal attacks. ... How many deaths from "pet" big cats? When people succumb to the temptation to purchase “exotic” animals such as hedgehogs, macaws, lizards, and monkeys—even tigers and bears—from stores, auctions, or the Internet in order to keep them as “pets,” it often leads to pain and death for these animals, who can easily suffer from malnutrition, loneliness, and the overwhelming stress of confinement to an … ... 13 Chief Investigator Darcy Spears takes a look inside the controversial world of exotic pets. In one survey, 71 percent of domestic violence victims reported that their abuser also targeted pets. They found that from 2008-2015, there were 1,610 animal-related fatalities in the US, with the majority of deaths the result of encounters with nonvenomous animals (57 percent). Here is a graphic from the network's website that lists the numbers of individual large exotic pet-inflicted injuries and fatalities. These mute animals excluding the pain of such experiments suffer more agonizing death. 30. (World Animal Protection) Wild animals that are kept as pets suffer because nothing can replace their natural habitat. Melissa cares for a variety of exotic animals and has completed a certificate in veterinary assisting and a bachelor's degree in biology. Exotic pets do not bond with humans the same way domesticated animals do. There are approximately 70 million pet dogs and 74.1 million pet cats in the U.S. where 20 men and women are assaulted per minute (an average of around 10 million a year). Many states ban entire classes of animal, such as primates, from being ketp as pets. A new study released in the latest issue of Wilderness & Environmental Medicine shows that animal encounters remain a considerable cause of human harm and death. The U.S. incidents have resulted in the deaths of 25 humans, 20 adults and 5 children, the additional mauling of 270 more adults and children, 288 escapes, the killing of 150 big cats, and 133 confiscations. Of course, the 'exotic' animals get lumped together as one entity in the second chart. The definition of an exotic pet varies by locale, so what is considered “domesticated” in one place may be considered exotic elsewhere. He was the chairman of the Canadian Exotic Animal Owner's Association, and actively fought for the right to keep dangerous big cats as pets. Animal Intervention was a show on the National Geographic channel that opportunistically added to anti-exotic pet hysteria. Certain states ban specific types of pets. 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