What are the Impacts of Exotic Pet Trade?

What is Exotic Pet Trade?

Exotic pet trade is the practice of supplying and keeping animals in a non-native region and/or domestication (Warwick et al., 2018).

Over one billion specimens imported between 2000 and 2013 in just the United States alone (Toland et al., 2020).
With increasing internet usasge, how does social media play a part?

What are the Impacts?

Animal Welfare

Animal welfare can include capture strategies, breeding, transportation, and storage of animals
Can cause stress, physical injury and even death
80% of animals (invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals) were diseased, injured or dead,” (Toland et al., 2020).
Lack of correct care from owners also contributes- One group of researchers concluded that “exotic pet acquisition is significantly motivated by status factors, narcissistic and borderline personality traits, ostentation, social recognition, conformity, and materialistic indulgence rather than an intrinsic respect for animals or their wellbeing,” (Warwick et al., 2018).

(Keesing & Ostfeld, 2021)

Public Health

The transmission of diseases from animals to people, also known as a zoonotic disease
It is estimated that 75% of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic (Chomel et al., 2007).
Recognizable diseases that are zoonotic are the West Nile and Monkeypox
Many of these diseases have not been recognized yet due to the lack in severity in symptoms
- - - “gastrointestinal disorders linked to reptile-associated salmonellosis can be mistaken for typical food-poisoning, and flu-like disease linked to avian-associated psittacosis, both of which may originate from pets, can be wrongly interpreted,” (Toland et al., 2020)
Once these diseases have surfaced, it is difficult for scientists to create cures and preventative strategies, but the origin is always found out

Environmental Concerns

Invasive Species Introduction
- - The poor management of these exotic pets results in an unhappy and potentially dangerous animal
  - People tend to bite off more than they can chew, and once they get frustrated and realize they cannot properly care for their pet, they release it back to the wild
  - Another way of introduction is simply by escape from poor enclosures
  - “53% of invasive vertebrate species have been introduced by the pet trade,” (Mazzamuto et al., 2021).
Biodiversity Loss and Habitat Destruction
- - Direct result of the introduction of invasive species to new environments
  - Animals leave their intended environments and enter a food web in which they do not belong
  - Results in the loss of this species in its original habitat along with a disruption in the newly introduced habitat

Ostrom's Social-Ecological System (OSES)

OSES was created to diagnose common-pool resource management problems
Uses social and ecological variables that all interact with each other to produce an outcome to be diagnosed for problem resolution
These variables include resource systems, resource units, governance systems, actors, interactions, and an outcome
Resource systems (animal environments)- physical or environmental settings where the resources lie
Resource units (exotic animals)- the things within the resource system that are being manipulated
Governance systems (regulations or licenses made by a government)- set of rules or regulations that control the flow of resource use
Actors (captors, traders, transporters, buyers, or sellers )- individuals who use the resource units for a specific reason
Interactions (exotic pet trade)- The interaction between it all is the influence on one thing
Outcome (animal welfare, public health, environmental concerns)- what is produced by all these variables, whether it be direct or not (Filbee‐Dexter et al., 2018)

Is Social Media Creating a Stronger Desire to Own Exotic Pets?

People have access to cute videos that make them long for the furry creatures, no matter the consequences
YouTube videos about exotic animals as pets were highly favored by users and were only displeased when there were negative interactions in them (Sharir-Smith, 2022)
With proper education, the view on exotic animals as pets can be turned into the negative truth that it is
This will help ease the newfound excitement of owning these wild animals seemingly due to social media displays

Methods/Justifications

To get an accurate reading on effects, a sample size of 1000 people is desired per generation
Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z would be asked a series of questions relating to the topic such as,
- - How often do you go on social media?
  - How often do you see animal videos on social media?
  - How often do you seek out animal videos on social media?
  - Have you been influenced to purchase a new animal due to social media?
  - Have you had the urge to?
Using a sample from each generation would help determine the influence social media has because of the stronger online presence each generation before another has
The surveys would be held online for convenience and honesty
Although 1000 people is ideal, the generation with the lowest number of answers would dictate the sample size to get the largest sample we can due to a larger sample number equating to more consistent and accurate results (Andrade, 2020)
With basic yes or no questions, we will be able to run chi-square analysis to determine significance within the results. With the stipulations from this experiment, we will be able to address the true relationship between social media influence and exotic pets and address the education gaps properly

Sources

Andrade, C. (2020). Sample Size and Its Importance in Research. Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, 42(1), 102–103. NCBI. https://doi.org/10.4103/IJPSYM.IJPSYM_504_19

Chomel, B. B., Belotto, A., & Meslin, F.-X. (2007). Wildlife, Exotic Pets, and Emerging Zoonoses - Volume 13, Number 1—January 2007 - Emerging Infectious Diseases journal - CDC. Wwwnc.cdc.gov, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.3201/eid1301.060480

Filbee‐Dexter, K., Symons, C. C., Jones, K., Haig, H. A., Pittman, J., Alexander, S. M., & Burke, M. J. (2018). Quantifying ecological and social drivers of ecological surprise. Journal of Applied Ecology, 55(5), 2135–2146. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13171

Keesing, F., & Ostfeld, R. S. (2021). Impacts of biodiversity and biodiversity loss on zoonotic diseases. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(17), e2023540118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2023540118

Mazzamuto, M. V., Wauters, L. A., & Koprowski, J. L. (2021). Exotic Pet Trade as a Cause of Biological Invasions: The Case of Tree Squirrels of the Genus Callosciurus. Biology, 10(10), 1046. https://doi.org/10.3390/biology10101046

Sharir-Smith, J. (2022, February 21). How Social Media Encourages The Exotic Animal Trade. Faunalytics. https://faunalytics.org/how-social-media-encourages-the- exotic-animal-trade/

Toland, E., Bando, M., Hamers, M., Cadenas, V., Laidlaw, R., Martínez-Silvestre, A., & van der Wielen, P. (2020). Turning Negatives into Positives for Pet Trading and Keeping: A Review of Positive Lists. Animals, 10(12), 2371. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10122371

Warwick, C., Steedman, C., Jessop, M., Arena, P., Pilny, A., & Nicholas, E. (2018). Exotic pet suitability: Understanding some problems and using a labeling system to aid animal welfare, environment, and consumer protection. Journal of Veterinary Behavior, 26, 17–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jveb.2018.03.015