A PET shop owner has warned that the sudden explosion in demand for exotic pets could lead to serious problems for the animals and their owners.

Barry Crabtree, owner of Pets Corner in Rawtenstall, has seen demand for exotic pets grow massively.

Snakes, spiders, iguanas, lizards, chipmunks and other tropical creatures now account for 20 per cent of his trade. He is concerned that many animals are at risk because owners do not know how to care for them.

And he fears that owners who do not understand how to look after exotic pets, or who find them a problem, will simply abandon them.

"There are thousands of iguanas being kept as pets, for instance," he said.

"These reptiles can grow up to six feet in length. What are people going to do with them then?"

Mr Crabtree warned of a small minority of owners and dealers who abused the system. His catalogue of horror stories includes people buying pets without even knowing what they are, keeping them in conditions which are too cold and keeping them in tanks which are not escape-proof.

He said: "If you haven't got a proper container to put a reptile in it will get out. A python, for instance, could be on the loose in your house for 12 months and you would never see it. "They can live for quite a while without food. They could be down the settee or in the space between the toilet and the bath or behind the boiler. All they need is a tiny hole to crawl into." He said many people who were used only to cats and dogs did not know what they were taking on.

He refuses to sell monkeys because he believes they are vicious and unsuitable as pets and warned that, although tarantulas are not venomous enough to kill humans, they spit out hairs which can blind.

He believes more publicity about exotic pet ownership and more education is needed rather than government legislation.

His concern is shared by many vets who are starting to see an increase in the number of exotic creatures brought to their surgery.

Burnley vet David Greenhalgh said he feared many more creatures died before they had the chance to be seen by a vet.

He urged anyone buying an exotic creature to take it to the vet for a check up and for advice on keeping it as soon as it was bought, rather than waiting until there were problems.

He said: "A lot of the problems are down to environmental factors such as poor housing and poor feeding and a lack of understanding about the natural lifestyle of the animals."

He added that vets were not in favour of outlawing exotic pet ownership but felt the practice needed closer regulation.

He said a licensing system which obliged pet shop owners to notify the authorities when exotic creatures were bought, could be a solution. The best safeguards at the moment were careful vetting of buyers by pet shop owners and better information about pets.

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