Personally I do not think that primates should be kept in private hands, but I also feel the same about birds in aviaries. The social groupings of primates are too complex to be reproduced properly in captivity unless there is the ability to keep enough to fulfill this, which would mean an enclosure of a size unlikely to be feasible to most people outside zoos and wildlife parks.

That said, i also do not approve of the keeping of many of the species that zoos have, notably elephants, as i do not think that even the best zoo can provide a comparable habitat to that which they would enjoy in the wild. There are enough fascinating species that do not require huge amounts of space which could be kept instead, but zoos are in a way forced to keep ther so called 'Big Five' as it is these that draw the public and therefore make the money for the organisation.

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Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead.
Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow.
Do not walk beside me either, just f*** off and leave me alone.

but surely this same argument could be pointed at most species of reptiles, amphibians, inverts, and common mammals

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MY SNAKES AND INVERTSLAVENDER 1.1BUTTER 1.0ABBOTTS OKEETEE 2.1BLOODRED 1.1STRAWBERRY SNOW 0.1ULTRAMEL HET CARAMEL 0.1STRIPED HOUSE SNAKE 0.1CAPE HOUSE SNAKE 0.1.1AMEL CAPE HOUSE SNAKE 1.1ROYAL PYTHON 0.1MEXICAN RED KNEE 0.0.3BRAZILLIAN WHITE KNEE 0.0.2GIANT SPINEY STICK INSECTS 2.3

its all very well saying that you dont like to see elephants in zoos if these animals was to be re released in to the wild what would happen they would be poached and killed its a shame i no but man is destroying the jungle the only chance they have to survive is in captivity and the same goes for primates if i can breed any animal im happy im doing my bit towards conservation what i dont like is keepers that have 20 snakes/lizards/frogs/etc in a collection of diffrent species and can never be bothered to breed them at least zoos are trying to breed and keep them alive i can rember ten years ago i wanted to try and breed candoia carinata buying a pair was nearly impossible they were all female and the reason the trappers thought buy catching the big ones they would get more money for them wrong it wos only until word got to them that they needed to catch small ones as these was the males needless to say i never bred them but at least i tried to save them

This is in no way meant to sound derogatory Phil but you are effectively saying we shouldn't be keeping animals unless we are keeping in pairs and breeding?

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na not saying that at all i cant see the point of having an exotic animal and not trying to breed it at least in a pair your trying to save the species if its threatned with extinction

I fully agree for those people who are lucky enough to work with species that are more rare but you must understand most people only get the chance to work with commonly kept species.

There is very rarely leopard geckos or bearded dragons taken from the wild as their captive numbers are so drastic there is simply no need.

If I had to money, I would try to help copnserve some of the rarer species by running a captive breeding program with the likes of Fiji banded iguanas but sadly, for most of us, that is only ever a pipe dream and never a reailty

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I can see what both of you are saying, sadly however, the opposition and even those who don't keep anything do not view exotic keepers as those whom are saving anything under conservation.

We are just pet keepers at best as a term, and bad ones at that as far as they are concerned.

Loosely speaking, yes l suppose in some small way we are 'conserving the species' in, when they are kept as such, their natural state, as in no colour morphs etc. But as the main bulk of animals in the Uk are captive bred and generations of captive bred, we are only conserving captive bred stocks.

But there is no way any of our animals could ever be re released into the wild.

So that will always be seen as the weight around our necks.

R

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Why would they be different to keeping any other pet.....

Aslong as its looked after properly and given the correct facilities what makes it different from a zoo??

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1.0 Amel Motley Corn

You are bang on. If i ever hear exotic keepers telling me they're conserving the species etc i take it with a huge pinch of salt. As Rory said they'll never be returned to the wild and your only conserving what is a limited captive bred gene pool. Thankfully reptiles seem quite hardy in resisting inbred problems, primates and mammals however could suffer dramatically. Thats why zoo's have internationally organised captive breeding programmes and stud books to avoid inbreeding. What if an ignorant primate keeper, brought 2 capuchins who were unknown to him related and bred them. Is this fair?

Exactly how up to speed are people in terms of whats a threatened species? Yes elephants are under threat but are classified as threatened, the 4th category in IUCN listing. Data in terms of snake populations is even smaller, so who really knows whats endangered or relatively common.

hi well i think everyone is going to have a totally different view on this topic and that wont change. monkeys are a very inteeligent and facinating and need not say a beautiful animal. some people would love to own them, some people do own them and some people are repulsed by the idea of owning primates.

in my opinion... they are much safer in captivity. the world is so screwed up and its unfair for such beautiful, small animals to have to fight it alone. in a home as a pet/part of the family. they shall never fight for food, never fight for territory, never have to worry about being killed by a predator or simply by humans. humans are killing off much wildlife and the ones that are in homes with lots of love care food whenever they want it ect... are pretty damn lucky. we no longer live as cavemen why the hell should primates

thats just my opinion though. as i already said im sure everyone has different views.

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