Wild Animals Are Not Pets

Wild Animals Are Not Pets🐾

📌Keeping a wild animal at home may begin with affection, compassion, or an attempt to rescue an animal from a difficult situation. But a wild animal is not a pet.

📍In Iran, the keeping of wildlife and certain other activities involving wild animals are subject to legal authorization from the Department of Environment. Article 31 of the Executive Regulations of the Hunting and Fishing Law explicitly prohibits keeping huntable animals without obtaining the required permit from the Department. Iranian wildlife legislation also provides penalties, including fines and, in certain cases, imprisonment, for violations involving protected wildlife.

• So if you find a wild animal in nature, do not turn it into a household pet.
• If the animal is injured, sick, or unable to survive on its own, the appropriate response is to contact the local Department of Environment so that the animal’s transfer, treatment, temporary care, rehabilitation, and final disposition can be determined by the responsible authorities.

A message to veterinarians🩺

📌Veterinarians may sometimes encounter wild animals being kept by members of the public. In such cases, the animal should not simply be treated as an ordinary companion animal while the circumstances of its captivity are ignored.

• Examining or treating a sick or injured wild animal is not the same as normalizing its unauthorized captivity!

When a wild animal is being kept without the required authorization, veterinarians should, while addressing the animal’s immediate welfare and medical needs, coordinate with the Department of Environment and cooperate with the authorities regarding the animal’s legal disposition, transfer, treatment, and, when appropriate, rehabilitation.

The goal is not to punish the animal or the person.

📌The goal is to ensure that a wild animal returns to its natural ecological role rather than becoming a household pet.

Let us love wildlife—but let us keep wildlife where it belongs.

Legal references: Iran’s Hunting and Fishing Law and its Executive Regulations; official legal texts available through Iran’s National Laws and Regulations database.