Could keeping native animals as pets help conservation of threatened species?

[Simon Hampel]

If we were allowed to keep native animals as pets, could it save them from extinction?

While the prevailing belief is that wildlife should stay in the wild, at least one one respected biologist thinks that allowing us to keep Australian animals as pets could help their chances of survival.

A paleontologist at the University of New South Wales, Mike Archer, told Geoff Hutchison of ABC Radio Perth that not allowing the public to keep native animals as pets was "potentially a passport to extinction".

Only South Australia and Victoria permit the keeping of native animals as house pets, and Professor Archer said that if it were more common there would be greater interest in saving them.

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Interesting argument - although I feel there is a strong counter-argument that domesticating animals is not exactly preserving them?

 

[TinoPup]

I strongly disagree with that idea! Just look at what domestication has done to raccoons and striped skunks in the USA, and red foxes. People don't care about their wild counterparts at all, and now zoos are overrun with these domestic bred ones (roadsides breeding them, AZA getting in surrenders/rescues). They come in all of these different colors that don't occur in the wild, and they're selected for friendliness and other behavior traits that would get them killed. They're certainly not something you could repopulate with should they suddenly become threatened. Even AZA zoos now have "silver foxes", like it's a separate species, instead of a domestic morph. That does the opposite of educating.

Bactrian camels are a great example. People love camels, they're everywhere, but how many even know that the Bactrian is nearly extinct in its true form? What about black footed ferrets, vs domestic ones that are kept as pets by so many?

 

[TeaLovingDave]

Bactrian camels are a great example. People love camels, they're everywhere, but how many even know that the Bactrian is nearly extinct in its true form?

It *is* extinct in the original wild form, in fact - the extant wild camel (despite the fact it's sometimes called the wild Bactrian camel) wasn't the progenitor of either domestic species!

 

[TinoPup]

It *is* extinct in the original wild form, in fact - the extant wild camel (despite the fact it's sometimes called the wild Bactrian camel) wasn't the progenitor of either domestic species!

See, I didn't even know that much!

 

[Jurek7]

I am very afraid of the separation from nature, where most city children and young adults practically never visit nature anymore. They technically care about the environment, but they never see it, so would happily let it go extinct as long as facebook says things are OK. There is a whole category of activities like Pokemon, which is essentially catching and keeping pets in a virtual form, because people see no real animals anymore. Many computer games are also essentially displacement contact with nature. For restarting contact of city people with nature, it is worth to let children keep lizards in terrarium and suchlike.

I would argue that it may be a good thing, and prohibited should be keeping a limited number of species where there is actual evidence it makes harm (some actually threatened by trade, very poisonous etc).

At least orange-bellied parrot and ground parrot are endangered species which could be easily kept as pets.

 

[PossumRoach]

I don’t disagree with keeping non domesticated/conventional animals as pets. But to say it might benefit conservation sounds cringe. I am just sick of the idea that everything we do with wildlife has to do with conservation. In my opinion this reduces the word conservation into a selling pitch or a justification to avoid criticism or to ride off the success of actual conservation.

But no I don’t oppose native animals as pets as long as it is strongly regulated.

 

[Ursus]

My only question here is...

How does keeping a singular animal or maybe a pair actually benefit the conservation of a threatened species???

I think for fishes this impact is currently already noticeable, there are several fishes, to name one; red-tailed shark (Epalzeorhynchos bicolor) which basically is surviving extinction because of the hobbyists keeping and breeding the species.

However is this possible for all native species?

I will use my own country here as an example;
Say I was to keep fire salamanders, a country-wide endangered species, then how do I contribute actively to the conservation of the species? Do I aim to breed these and send off the offspring to a reintroduction programme? Will every private keeper of this species be part of some private hobbyist conservation programme? If so, what if a keeper doesn't desire to be part of this?
Who runs these programmes?

 

[Jurek7]

There are several extinct in the wild small fish which survived in hobbyist tanks. I am not sure how are native fish in Australia faring.

However I still think that raising interest or awareness about wildlife is the legitimate benefit of pet keeping. Organizations do lots of expensive activities like building visitor centers, making school lessons etc. only to raise awareness in the public. Keeping a lizard or a fish or a small mammal can be more effective than this.

 

[DaLilFishie]

The Lake Eacham Rainbowfish (Melanotaenia eachamensis) was saved by the aquarium trade, it went extinct in the wild from introduced predators like Tilapia and Mouth Almighty. There were specimens collected for aquariums before they went extinct in the wild, and these specimens were able to be bred. They have been reintroduced in small numbers, but Tilapia and Mouth Almighty still run rampant, so they will have to be eradicated from Lake Eacham before there can be a large-scale reintroduction.

Possibly the same could be done for the endangered galaxiids? It wouldn't solve the root of the problem, introduced trout, but it would allow a reintroduction once the trout are dealt with.

 

[MRJ]

This is an idea that Mike Archer seems to promotes every decade or so. I think the arguments above show that it has little value, from a conservation perspective.