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Exotic pets potentially lethal - not just on planes

Posted Dec 01, 2006 at 05:04AM by Tim Y. Listed in: Animals and Wildlife, Diseases Tags: Europe, Africa, 770, SARS, Asia, Darin Carroll
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Samuel L. Jackson, the (anti)snakeman


What's cute, cuddly, pink, and fluffy - and don't say a Pink PSP. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, at least  650 million pets arrive legally, a list which includes kangaroos, exotic fishes and birds. Illegally, we're looking at larger numbers of exotic pets landing stateside in an international black market that earns up to US$ 10 billion a year - second only to the drug trade.

"A wild animal will be in the bush, and in less than a week it's in a little girl's bedroom," says Darin Carroll, an inspector working for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Venomous pets aside, the biggest killer Carroll's after is disease - exotic pets from Africa, Asia and South America can potentially carry equally exotic disease, possibly passed on from pets to the humans who handle them..."Outbreak" comes to mind.

The list should give ideas on what's already landed due to the exotic pet trade:
  • Hantavirus,which is carried by rodents and can cause acute respiratory problems or death, has sickened at least 317 Americans and killed at least 93 since 1996.
  • More than 770 people have been sickened since 2000 with tularemia, a virulent disease that can be contracted from rabbits, hamsters and other rodents. At least three people have died.
  • Three transplant patients in New England died last year after receiving organs from a human donor who had been infected with the lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus from a pet hamster. There have been 34 U.S. cases since 1993.
Other potentially lethal diseases as of 2001 include the Avian flu, which was found on eagles being smuggled into Europe; SARS, which was detected in cats in a Chinese market; monkeypox, a variation of smallpox that Carroll found on infected U.S. citizens in the Midwest who had been handling rodents smuggled from Africa.

The biggest problem with this growing trade is its lack of personnel - at present the government has just 120 full-time inspectors to check incoming wildlife for any potential disease. What confounds this growing problems is lack of government oversight for it, along with the local populace's lack of awareness.

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