When talking about any animal issues, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
(PETA) is the organization that comes to mind as they are famous for protecting, supporting and
raising awareness for animal welfare. Exotic Animals as ‘Pets’ is an article found on their
website and it primarily consists of a list of dangers that keeping exotic animals as pets can cause
both to the animals and to the humans keeping them. The sentences are short and concise, and a
lot of facts are offered without burdening the reader with information. “The exotic ‘pet’ trade is
big business. Selling protected wildlife in stores, auctions, or on the Internet is one of the largest
sources of criminal earnings, behind only arms smuggling and drug trafficking. But the animals
pay the price.” This is how the article begins, and it gets straight to the point without any fancy
words or lengthy background information. PETA is also a pretty famous organization, which
does increase the article’s credibility and makes the reader trust and believe the information
provided on their official website.
Opposing view: Let people own exotic animals is the title of an article published on the
news website USA Today. Zuzana Kukol is the author of this controversial article, and she is
also the president and co-founder of Responsible Exotic Animal Ownership (REXANO), which
is stated at the end of the article. This is a clear case of the use of ethos as the “president and co-
founder” title itself gives the author credibility and shows the audience that she is someone who
is directly related to the issues she’s talking about. She uses similar statistics as the other two
sources mentioned above, however she uses them in a whole different manner. By giving the
number of human deaths caused by exotic animal pets, which is 3.25 deaths on a