Should exotic animals be pets?

Keeping exotic endangered animals as pets conserves them

Question: Should exotic animals be pets?
Position‹2 of 2: Yes, exotic animals should be pets
Argument1 of 2›: Keeping exotic endangered animals as pets conserves them

Keeping endangered animals as pets help conserve the species by allowing them to live and reproduce in a safe environment.

The argument

Proponents of this position argue that for some endangered animals, private keeping is not a threat to the species but one of the few remaining ways of sustaining it. The premise is that the wild is no longer reliably available. Deforestation removes the habitat an animal would return to, climate change alters what remains, and poaching removes individuals faster than a population can replace them. Where those pressures have already driven numbers down drastically, or have made the natural environment somewhere the animal can no longer return to, the choice is not between captivity and a flourishing wild existence. It is between captivity and extinction. Given that choice, proponents argue, captivity is the better outcome, and ordinary households can contribute to it. Animals kept as pets are animals that are fed, housed and kept alive, and animals that are kept alive can reproduce, so humans can raise a species' population numbers by keeping them rather than deplete those numbers. The concession is made openly: the animals will have to live in captivity, and that is a real cost. It is simply a smaller cost than the species ceasing to exist. Foxes are offered as an illustration of what this rescue looks like in practice. Foxes are becoming more commonly domesticated in order to save them from being killed for their thick fur, and the individuals taken in usually come out of fur factories in poor condition, suffering from infections and malnutrition. Their situation also shows what the arrangement involves. Although such foxes are considered tamed, they retain the same instincts as their wild counterparts, and they would die if released from domestication - which is precisely why the home, rather than the wild, is now where their survival has to happen. Exotic animals should be pets.

Premises

[P1]Keeping endangered animals as pets can raise their population numbers as deforestation, climate change, and poaching shrink wild populations. [P2] Captivity is sometimes the best option to prevent extinction when animals cannot return to their natural environment. [P3] Domesticating foxes, for example, rescues them from fur factories where they suffer infection and malnutrition. [C] Therefore, because keeping exotic endangered animals as pets conserves them, exotic animals should be pets.

Counter-arguments

The focus should be on stopping the harm being done to the environment and putting an end to killing animals for their fur instead of forcing wild animals into domestication. Around the world, human activity has led to a major decrease in forests and other habitats for animals to live in. The fur trade has decreased in the U.S. in the past years but still is not completely illegal. Having exotic pets is not the solution to endangered animals.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Keeping exotic animals as pets is not the solution to endangered species.