Crazy & Cruel
“In the UK, it can be easier to get approval to keep a Mountain Lion than extract a dog or cat from a rescue home”
Can you buy a wild animal from a shop?
If you saw a lion cub on display in a shop that you could purchase to keep in your house, no questions asked, would you think this unbelievably crazy, sad and cruel? This happened in 1969 when two Australian friends bought a lion cub from Harrods, a shop in London where you could buy virtually any wild animal, on a whim. They named the cub Christian, and the lion lived with them in their flat on King’s Road in Chelsea before it was returned to the wild. The Pet kingdom department in Harrods finally closed down with the introduction of the Endangered Species Act in 1976.
Surely this could not happen today? We stopped performing animals in circuses in January 2020 – our animal welfare system must mean that the purchasing of non-native wild animals to keep as pets is a thing of the past. Unbelievably, it remains firmly in the present and getting worse.
Lion cubs and many other wild species, can still be bought, sold and discarded, like living toys in a department store. This cruel largely unregulated practice is on the increase, just less visible now.
The UK today
The UK operates under a ‘negative list’ system, meaning that any wild animal, with very few exceptions, can legally be owned by an individual, without a licence, unless there is a specific piece of legislation against this.
A few invasive or native species are deemed illegal to keep. This list is under 20, the last time I checked. The species that are on this short list are there for the reasons of human safety and invasive species concern. Not one animal is on that list for reasons of their welfare. In addition, there is a list of animals deemed dangerous that can still be legally “owned” but require a licence to be held (listed in the ‘Schedule’ of the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976) This includes elephants, big cats, giraffe, venomous snakes and more!
However, getting a license to keep a dangerous animal, from a local council, is the only real hurdle to accessing virtually any wild animal on planet earth.
The license process is human centred and managed by non-experts in wild animal welfare:
- the focus of the license is on the safety of the human, not the welfare of the animal
- the attending vet is the person’s own vet, so no independence and a clear conflict of interest
- the vet and council rarely have any knowledge about, or prior dealings with the animal they are tasked to license. My first Dangerous Wild Animal licence (DWA) included text about emu keeping while I was applying for a Zebra license and then the amended one asked the inspector to check there was adequate grooming equipment for the Zebra as they had lifted text from a standard horse document
- the license itself has minimal to no consideration for the welfare of the animal. For example, the minimum enclosure size required to pass inspection guarantees the animal total captive misery. For a Mountain Lion the minimum size quoted for their total living area is 28 square metres and for two Lemurs is 3 square metres
- we are only inspected every two years!
And if the animal is not deemed dangerous you can buy one with no questions asked or any institution regulating or ensuring that you can care for it properly.
A pet shop in the UK openly sells reptiles and wild animals and their websites says: “when you buy an animal from the xxxx centre, that it will be in the best possible health and will keep you or your children entertained for a very long time to come”
Is a wild animal, enduring a life of imprisonment and often solitary confinement too, really going through all that to entertain a human? As stated, in the UK, it can in be easier to get approval to keep a Mountain Lion in your back garden then extract a dog or cat from a rescue home.
What is the size and scope of the problem?
World Animal Protection have shared some alarming statistics with WildSide.
- A World Animal Protection study found that 3,411,021 non-CITES (the international convention that regulates species at risk of overexploitation) listed live wild animals were imported into the UK from 90 countries between 2014-2018. In the same period, an additional 75,928 animals protected by CITES entered the UK.
- It is estimated that over 13,000 species, across all major animal classes, are involved in the wild animal pet trade.
- In 2023, Born Free found that over 2,700 dangerous wild animals were being kept privately, and legally, under licence in Great Britain under the Dangerous Wild Animals Act 1976. This includes over 200 wild cats, 250 primates and 400 venomous snakes.
- Analysis of CITES trade records and published literature on the wildlife trade revealed staggering numbers of animals traded live (presumably destined for the pet trade) involving over 500 species of bird (approximately half of which are parrots), almost 500 species of reptile (mostly turtles, lizards and snakes) and over 100 species of mammal (mostly carnivores and primates).
