Exotic Pets

An exotic pet is a rare or unusual animal kept as a pet, or an animal kept as a pet which is not commonly thought of as a pet.

Many major pet stores and service providers (such as veterinary insurance carriers or online retailers) tend to classify any animal besides cats, dogs, small birds or fish as "exotic".

It has been estimated that as many as 15,000 non-human primates are kept by private individuals as pets just in the United States alone. Nine states ban the keeping of non-human primates, but no federal law regulates ownership.

Many professionals, including veterinarians, zoologists, humane societies and others, strongly discourage the keeping of non-human primates as pets, as their complex emotional and social needs and other highly specialized requirements may be difficult to meet by the average owner.

Health
Veterinary costs for treatment of exotic animals may be significantly higher than for a more conventional pet due to the increased specialization.

Husbandry
Providing appropriate environmental conditions, housing and diet for an exotic animal may be difficult for several reasons:

insufficient information may be available on caring for such animals in captivity
adequate housing may be difficult and/or expensive to procure or build
it may be difficult to provide the correct environment (such as temperature or amount of sunlight) feeding the correct diet may be difficult or impossible
providing the right social environment for highly social species may be impossible in a home setting

Domestication
Unlike cats and dogs, exotic animals have not been domesticated and remain wild. Even if they are bred for the pet trade and raised by humans, they may be unpredictable, largely untrainable, and in some cases, dangerous, especially as full-grown adults.