Is Owning Exotic Pets Ethical?

I personally think there are multiple angles that you can approach this idea from, but the two main ones are from a hobbyist and the other is from someone who does not understand the culture behind it.

The first important thing we have to make apparent is the difference between ethical keeping and people who keep animals in sub par conditions. Purely speaking from experience with reptiles and aquatics if someone keeps an animal in a sub par enclosure than obviously I will say keeping that animal is unethical. If you are keeping it in something that is too small or it is neglected than it is completely different than someone who keeps them properly. So for the sake of my following statements we will assume the animals are cared for properly.

From an outside perspective, keeping a snake or a fish in an enclosure might seem like something unethical because they are used to being in the wild where they have an abundance of space to move around in and to which they can go wherever they please. But the truth is the wild is not like that, everyone assumes it to be somewhere where every annals thrives but the truth is most start, lose their habitat to pollution or are being hunted by other animals. When we keep animals in captivity, most of them are captive bred which means that they have never known outside a captive environment. They then live in ideal conditions with constant food in a clean environment. In my personal opinion I see that as ethical as a lot of the animals we keep also never venture far from their territory. Like snakes, many will have burrows or territories in which they never leave so it is not that different from an enclosure. And for fish most of the time their home is not the ocean and instead are small streams or ponds in which they are constantly being hunted.

So in my opinion keeping them in ideal conditions to live a happy life is not unethical as long as you care for them properly and they are captive bred individuals.