Spaniards Swap Old-Fashioned Pets for Snakes and Tigers
Trade in exotic animals is booming in Spain, one of the world's main hubs for the business, where no wild creature seems too outlandish to find a buyer.
"Spain is probably the most important gateway of exotic animals into the European Union," says Mariana Sanz de Galdeano, President of the National Association for the Defense of Animals (ANDA).
One typical Madrid pet shop, for instance, offers chameleons and iguanas alongside the old-fashioned rabbits, hamsters and guinea pigs.
Gerbils, chinchillas or squirrels are no longer enough to satisfy the clients' thirst for novelties, the salesman explains. "This python costs 70 euros (78 dollars)," he says, showing an arm-thick snake slumbering in a glass box. "Its buyer will have to start breeding mice, as it only eats live animals."
A scorpion costs 30 euros. "It's poisonous, so you have to be careful when picking it up," the salesman says, according to DPA.
Who would want such pets? Lots of people -- and they are not put off by the high prices. Gorillas are for sale in Spain for 60,000 euros and crocodiles for 1,200 euros, according to press reports.
Located in a crossroads between Africa and Latin America, Spain acts as a hub for an estimated 30 percent of the lucrative global trade in exotic animals, many of them pertaining to protected species.
"Legal loopholes and a traditional indifference to animal rights have contributed to turning Spain into a center of the trade," Sanz de Galdeano told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur DPA.
Some of the animals are smuggled in, but many come legally, she explains. "Importing exotic animals is legal if the importer presents a certificate proving that they have been bred in captivity. But many of the certificates are fakes, or have been issued for different animals than the ones which carry them."
The General Council of Veterinary Colleges estimates that Spaniards keep some 60,000 reptiles and more than 100,000 exotic birds as pets.
In the eastern region of Catalonia alone, the local authorities have registered seven pumas, seven chimpanzees, five tigers, four bears and three lions.
It is no longer unusual to see a snake crawl around a hairdressing saloon or to spot a lion resting in a cage on somebody's front yard. "Anybody can buy a tiger, it's just a question of money," Catalan official Josep Ballus told the daily*** La Vanguardia.***
Many people rush to buy an exotic pet without hardly any idea of how to take care of it, Sanz de Galdeano says.
They also do not consider what it will be like to carry bagloads of meat for their roaring lion every day or to live with a tarantula that makes visitors turn away in disgust.
Most of the new pets do not respond to human presence like dogs and cats do, and they may spread diseases. "Many people tire of their pet and abandon it," Sanz de Galdeano says. "Tropical snakes and turtles have been spotted roaming free in Madrid parks. And some tiger owners have gradually stopped feeding their ailing pets, leaving them to die."
The exotic pets registered in Catalonia were kept in conditions meeting legal standards, but that is often not the case. Some people sequester their cumbersome pets into basements, and police have seized snakes and tigers which were kept to amuse the public, Sanz de Galdeano says.
Spain lacks for a centre for confiscated exotic animals, and they often end up in zoos or safari parks.
Experts say the trade is difficult to control in the animals' countries of origin, where officials may be prone to bribing and the animals may represent an important source of foreign currency.
Yet even if the importation was stopped, that would not put an end to the fashion of exotic pets, as tropical snakes, iguanas and Florida turtles are already being bred in Spain.