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Young World
Pet amnesty
COMPILED BY R. KRITHIKA
Photo: AFP
Posing : Tennis player Bryanne Stewart of Australia holds a 15-foot python from the Miami Metro Zoo.
Some were in tears; others went their way without a backward look. Miami MetroZoo in Southern Florida became the centre of attraction during its “Exotic Pet Amnesty Day” as people crowded to look at the strange animals being submitted. The idea was to give the owners an alternative to those who could no longer care for these pets. Some of the weirder entries were a rhino iguana, a spotted African serval cat and a coatmundi (a South American mammal). Seventeen-year-old Ray Padilla turned up with seven snakes Burmese pythons and Colombian boas, which he began collecting as a five-year-old. Scott Hardin, of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, told AP that restrictions on owning exotic pets are now tighter and will be tightened further. This usually results in people releasing pets into the wild where they can cause tremendous harm to local flora and fauna. Debbie Kupferman wept as she turned in her iguana, which she had nursed through a bone disease. “I have three dogs, two cats and I’m getting older,” she told AP. “Somebody’s going to spend more quality time with him.”
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