Dubai: The latest case of a roaming lioness in a residential area in Dubai on Thursday night has sparked fresh calls against the illegal act of keeping exotic animals as pets.

Police and municipal officials caught a one-year-old lioness after it escaped its owner’s home in Al Barsha on Thursday night.

Having wild animals in residential areas endangers everyone, including the animals themselves, animal welfare advocates said.

“We are always against keeping exotic animals as pets based on five reasons: animal welfare, survival of the species, safety concerns due to the animal’s unpredictable behaviour, risk of disease, and risk to native biodiversity if the animal escapes,” Dr Al Syed Mohammad, Regional Director at the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) - Middle East and North Africa, told Gulf News.

“On the animal welfare side, most of these lions are kept in cages, which are completely different from their natural habitat and most often than not, their keepers have no idea on how to take care of them.”

Keeping and “domesticating” exotic animals such as big cats is illegal and can attract a six-month imprisonment and Dh50,000 fine. But Dr Mohammad said the “smuggling of lion cubs commonly happen in the Arabian peninsula” in general coming from East Africa.

People fascinated with exotic animals think that if they take the animals when they are young and if the animals grew up with them, they are safe. But this isn’t always the case.

“People really like them when they are small and cute. But they don’t stay small. They get bigger and can get rough,” Rozaan de Kock, Carnivore Curator at Al Bustan Zoological Centre, said. “They are wild and even if they are friendly and seem to know you, they still have their wild instincts within them.”

Mahin Bahrami, co-founder of Middle East Animal Foundation, said there is only one solution to this problem. “We at Middle East Animal Foundation are adamantly against keeping wildlife as pets. Wildlife belong to the wild; that’s what they are called wildlife,” Bahrami told Gulf News.

“This is a common practice in this region and the authorities should do more to stop this dangerous and inhumane trend. It puts both humans and animals at risk for obvious reasons.”

People need to be aware of the suffering the animals have to endure before becoming someone’s pet to show off to friends,” Bahrami said.

“From the agony of capture to painful transportation to declawing and defanging… the only way to stop this is to outlaw keeping wildlife as pet and to enforce it.

“Dubai as a truly happy city must include the happiness of the animals, too.”