Turn In Your Pythons Before They Drive You Mad

If you had 25 quick-breeding Australian flying squirrels in your living room, you might feel a little overwhelmed. Which is why Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation decided to hold an Exotic Pet Amnesty Day, where owners of such squirrels as well as pythons, boas, turtles, geckos, and giant chameleons could turn in their pets without fear of prosecution, even though some may have been illegal in Florida. Why exempt people from prosecution? To keep people from just releasing their animals, creating a tiger-eats-monkey shitshow like the one that recently went down in Ohio. Speaking of which, five people have recently been charged with trying to steal the dead body of a lion released in that incident. I think the moral of this story is that exotic animals make people do crazy, crazy things, and should be in the wild where they belong. As Humane Society President Wayne Pacelle tells ABC, “There’s no reason for any private citizen to have a bear or a lion or a chimpanzee or a green anaconda in their home.”