Pets are more than just cats and dogs! A broad range of animals happily share our homes. And we want to keep it that way!
There are growing calls from anti-pet-keeping organisations for UK Governments to introduce a positive/permitted list of pets. It’s effectively a pet ban by another name.
An example of this type of campaign happening in Scotland can be found here.
These groups want to create a list of animal species that can be kept as pets.
And if your pet animal isn’t on that list then you would no longer be able to keep, breed or sell that animal.
They say it’s because certain pets – which they often characterise as ‘exotic’ – means people can’t look after them properly. But we know that’s not true.
They say these so-called exotic pets are ‘wild animals’ to try to scare us into thinking they shouldn’t share our homes. But pet fish like goldfish and guppies, reptiles like tortoises, birds like budgies, or small mammals like chinchillas are not wild animals – that’s just nonsense!
They say it’s to tackle issues around animal welfare. Unfortunately, there can be animal welfare issues with all pets, but no calls to ban access to certain breeds of dogs and cats, for example.
We are a coalition of keeper groups and trade associations which represent the people who keep a wide range of pets and animals, such as reptiles, amphibians, fish, aviary birds (eg canaries, budgerigars, finches), psittacines (eg parrots) fancy rats and raptors (eg hawks).
We believe education not pet bans are the key to happier and healthier pets, and their owners.
Help us to spread the word to politicians that they should say no to pet bans and positive lists and look at ways to improve pet owner education.
What you can do
This campaign is produced on behalf of The Hawk Board, The Federation of British Herpetologists, The National Council of Aviculture, The Parrot Society, The National Fancy Rat Society, Raptor Breeders UK, Responsible Reptile Keeping, Ornamental Aquatic Trade Association, Tropical Fish Keeping UK, Reptile and Exotic Pet Trade Association.
