Wildlife as pets

It is against the law to raise wildlife as pets. This not only posses a danger to wildlife, but to the caretaker. All mammals are capable of transmitting rabies, a  fatal viral disease, along with other infectious diseases.

Wildlife that has been raised by well-meaning public frequently die or end up as nuisance animals.

Kept in inadequate caging with improper diets, they develop metabolic bone disease resulting in stress fractures of limbs and spine or may have seizures. They will end up being too tame to release, having grown accustom to being handled by people or exposed to family pets, but to wild to keep. The novelty frequently wears off once the animal reaches maturity and becomes frustrated by its containment. Wildlife will bite, scratch and chew; people, furnishings, walls and will sometimes begin to self mutilate out of frustration. If released, they become a nuisance approaching humans and domestic animals having lost their natural instincts to avoid them. They will be injured, killed or starve.