A video on The National's website showing a young lion outside a villa in Abu Dhabi's Khalifa City A was a viral sensation, and a reminder that some people in the UAE are illegally keeping exotic animals as pets.
Experts say that keeping protected wild species such as lions, tigers and cheetahs in urban environments poses a danger both to the animals and to the people around them. Since it is illegal to keep these animals without a permit, the video had raised questions about how the lion got to be where it was.
But it’s not just big cats that are causing concern. Domestic cats and dogs have also been in the news, with reports about abuse and abandonment.
We put four questions on the subject of pets to users of the TaskSpotting app.
TaskSpotting describes itself as the region’s only advocate marketing platform and pitches our questions to its app community who typically engage with brands to create content, spread awareness and share feedback.
The 4,969 respondents to our survey were largely in favour of animal owners and their pets being licensed, and a majority thought that ownership should be restricted to small domestic pets. However, 1 in 10 respondents thought it OK for big cats to live in villas.
