Lions, Tigers and 16ft Gaboons, Oh my!

I say as long as you can properly care for the animal and protect it from those who can't (i.e. small children, neighborhood teens causing trouble, drunkards, etc), get whatever animal you want. If you have a few hundred acres in New Mexico and you want to keep a bull African elephant, knock yourself out. Just know that if it tramples you into the ground, it's your fault.

You know how many people have been killed by cows and horses? Don't see them banned in any states.

This movie was meant to show the absolute worst side of exotic pet ownership and was completely biased and inflammatory.

A lot of the movie deals with Tim Harrison's experiences over the last 20 years, especially incidents concerning big cats, lions, etc. If you believe the movie, there's a huge number of large cats, reptiles and primates that are kept in private homes throughout the U.S. There is nothing which tells you where he gets his figures but they are sprinkled all throughout the movie. He says his main concern, supposedly, is caring for the animals since most of the escaped or abandoned exotics were bought by people who were not prepared to care for them properly.

It's a pretty sad movie. They show cases where animals were killed and then dumped or kept in pretty inhumane conditions. The movie featured a guy who raised a pair of lions which then went on to have 4 cubs. During the owner's home video, later in the movie, it actually shows the adult male being accidentally electrocuted through some faulty wiring in a nearby freezer. Terrible.

Reptiles, besides alligators, arent covered much in the movie. They do show Tim going out on a call because someone's kids found an usual snake. This turned out to be a full-grown Gaboon Viper, in the garage behind some garbage cans. He says that the kids were playing with it, putting it around their necks, which I believe is a fabrication outright.


All in all a pretty sad movie in terms of how the big cats were treated and also some footage of an exotic animal auction somewhere out west. You heart really goes out to some of these animals. It makes us all look bad.

On the other hand, it was a pretty biased account. No responsible exotic owners were interviewed except for a very short segment that featured the owner of an exotic pet store. His words are prophetic though, he said and I paraphrase, "we better learn to police ourselves, or THEY will do it for us."

Every single statistic cited was meant to invoke fear in people and plant the thought that irresponsible exotic ownership is an epidemic in the U.S. They didn't think to mention that dogs bite hundreds of thousands of people every year, a majority of them kids. Is there any talk of a dog ban? Just flaming rhetoric!


In terms of the people they did interview, exotic owners aren't coming out of this looking too responsible. (Especially the idiot at hamburg who had just bought his young son an american alligator and tells Tim on camera, "yeah, it's gonna get about 8 feet")

I live in NYC and we arent allowed to have any snakes from the python or boa family or any large lizards at all. No iguanas, tegus, monitors, etc. I havent been able to find out why this happened as the law went into effect back in 1995.

My concern as that this film feeds the flames into an outright ban of all non-native species in the US. Don't get me wrong, and this might not be too popular, but I dont agree with someone having venomous if they live downstairs from me, i live in an apartment building. But if a responsible keeper down the street, who lives in a single family house, had venomous, I wouldnt mind. In my mind, if you're an educated responsible keeper, and you can house your exotics safely and humanely, I don't see a problem. But, people buying primates, bears, wolves, lions, tigers, cougars, & really large or venomous reptiles, need to get their act together before none of us can keep even a corn snake.

Having said that, we don't do to well with compromise here do we? It's all or nothing. Either you can have whatever the hell you want, this is America, rah rah rah, or it's a ban of some kind or another.

But, it seems like we've got to come up with some best practices ourselves before it's too late. I suspect that unscrupulous vendors, out for the fast dollar, are our worst enemy.

This guy is SO right, I guess I should lock up my ball python before it strangles me in my sleep like the vicious, soulless, bloodthirsty creature it is.

What a load. It's the few stupid people that get in over their heads that ruin it for the hundreds of thousands of responsible keepers out there.