VIDEO: Many Are Calling For Tighter Regulations On Exotic Animals

CALEDONIA, Miss. (WCBI)-We often hear stories about people purchasing exotic animals and having them as pets.

More often than not, a majority of those animals end up being neglected or abused.

“These are large super intelligent predators, and while they look pretty docile and cute in photos and cuddly, they have the capacity to do serious harm,” said Claire McDougall, the development officer for Cedarhill Animal Sanctuary.  “A bite, a simple slap of the paw, I mean if you have a domestic cat you know the damage a little cat can inflict on a person if they’re not being taken care of well, imagine a tiger that’s being mistreated, the capacity to do harm that they have.”

Mcdougall said it’s not a smart idea to keep an exotic animal as a pet. She often sees animals who were rescued after being exploited and mistreated.

“Well it’s infuriating, it’s heartbreaking,” she expressed. “There is between five and 10,000 big cats privately owned in this country, and that’s not AZA zoo’s or sanctuaries, that’s road side zoos, people’s back yards, garages, in their homes, there is no telling where all of these animals are because there is no federal regulation of their breeding and sell in the country.”

Animal sanctuaries like Cedarhill serve as a resting place for animals to get the proper care and treatment they deserve.

However, McDougall believes there should still be federal laws in place to control the ownership of wildlife animals.

“I think it was 5 years ago in Zanesville, Ohio, a man had a bunch of exotic cats, he killed himself and let all of the cats go,” McDougall recalled. “There were 50 big cats loose in a community, and law-enforcement is not prepared to make those kinds of decisions. They are not prepared to tranquilize or catch these large animals.”

McDougall is one of the many people are pushing for lawmakers to pass the Big Cat Public Safety Act.

If passed, it’ll prevent unqualified owners to be in possession or breed these exotic animals.

“We work all the time to fund raise and get people together, rally behind this issue and just not a lot of people know about it,” McDougall explained. “People don’t know that in certain states there are absolutely no regulations for a big cat ownership. If you have a few hundred dollars and access to the internet, you could go by a lion, cub, cougar cub, tiger cub, and have it in your backyard without any of your neighbors knowing about it and just with complete disregard to public safety.”

There are currently 5 states have don’t have laws on keeping dangerous wild animals as pets, Alabama is one of them.

Mississippi state law requires owners to obtain a permit in order to keep a big cat.