The question of keeping exotic animals as pets

At a different type of fair hosted by the Bangladesh Animal Welfare Association under the title, "Animal and Life Fair" held in the city, speakers waxed eloquent about the need for saving animals including the wildlife. So far as the principle goes, rights activists working for preserving the ecological system and forests in which the majority of animals live, have long been trying to reinforce the motto, "Live and let live". But a few nations have followed the principle to translate it into action. There is an indifferent and laid-back attitude on the part of government functionaries in most countries including Bangladesh towards saving the environment and ecological landscape. They are the power-wielders and take decisions contradictory to recommendations put forward by environmentalists and ecologists.
From this point of view, the caged indigenous and exotic animals actually flag a mixed signal. Birds and animals which are beautiful in the lap of Nature ought not to be confined to a limited space because they fail to enjoy their freedom to roam about on their own volition in the deep forests and in the open sky. However, when rapacious human actions bring any species on to the verge of extinction, wildlife lovers and experts delve deep into scientific methods to breed it from near extinction. Notably, mindless destruction of animal habitats and rampant slaughter of some species have brought them to extinction. Yet some dedicated scientists have made a valiant attempt to successfully revive some rare animals from deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) obtained from bones or skulls.
So this process of reviving, preserving and nurturing rare animals has no alternative. However, when people take some of these rare animals or birds as pets simply because they love those or out of fancy, they actually violate the wildlife's right to freedom. From the legal point of view, fulfilment of their desire to take wildlife as pet is egregious, notwithstanding the fact that they do everything possible for meting out the best of care and treatment to the birds and animals born with the spirit of freedom.
Taking reptiles, tigers, lions or other exotic lives as pet also smacks of a kind of subtle pride as if the keepers consider themselves a distinguished class from the run of the mill in society. Thus the ethical and legal issues are neglected under the nose of law enforcement agencies. Here a criminal practice is also involved. This is smuggling of such animals carried out by a highly dangerous and extended international network. There are also poachers who maintain a close link with the chain of smugglers and take the dubious art to extraordinary levels. Individuals who look for rare animals have to negotiate and procure such animals. The clandestine business has been responsible for giving rise to an underworld empire where killing people or animals alike is the norm.
So, all is not well on the exhibition front of rare animals much as the rhetoric may try to suppress the ethical and legal concerns. In fact, animals, birds, reptiles and insects have as much right to live and thrive as human beings do. People tend to forget that they are actually making a disservice to the ones they take as pets and in the process commit a crime.
There is no provision for adopting or fostering some pets. It is because of the law of the land that the mobile courts and law enforcement agencies launch drive against the pet shops that are emerging fast at different points of the urban centres. However, such occasional drives are showier than making a target of achieving the stated objectives. Sadly, it is the educated and moneyed class which takes a fancy for procuring exotic birds and animals because they can afford it. Even in Bangladesh, the amount of money spent on such a pet is quite staggering. The feeding costs even for a cat or dog far outpace the total living costs of a lower middle class family. There is no alternative to launching an informed campaign for expressing an emotional attachment with wild animals in their habitats from afar instead of confining them to a cage at home.