THE GUARDIAN (London, UK) 01 July 04 How do you decide whether an animal is dangerous? (David Adam)

By poking it with a stick or, more accurately, finding out how it would react if you did.

The government is reworking the rules on which wild animals can be owned without a licence and recently gathered biologists, zookeepers and other experts to discuss everything from aardvarks to zebras (neither of which, incidentally, was considered a suitable pet).

The panel pondered each animal's armoury, its inclination to use it, the harm the creature could inflict on a child and how it might behave if it escaped. "Some petkeepers want an animal that's out of the ordinary but we have to make sure there is no risk to the general public," says environment minister Elliot Morley.

The experts agreed that scorpions and several types of poisonous snake should be added to the controlled list, but considered emus, porcupines, bengal cats, raccoons, and sloths harmless enough to be taken off. So, too, the Brazilian wolf spider - not to be confused with the Brazilian wandering spider, one of the most venomous creatures to scurry the Earth, for which you still need a licence.

Other creatures were borderline, including the red (lesser) panda. "It's not much bigger than a raccoon so logically we shouldn't have listed it," says Jim Collins, a zoologist on the panel. "But we kept it on because it's so sweet-looking that if one was found by a child, the child might try to approach it and get bitten."

The expert panel was unable to agree on dwarf crocodiles and their Latin American cousins, dwarf caiman, which can grow up to 6ft long, about a foot of which comes with razor-sharp teeth. "They couldn't inflict any more injury than the average-sized dog but the government would have a hard sell to say, 'OK, your next door neighbour can keep a crocodile without having a checkup'," says Collins.

Edwin Blake, who works with dwarf crocodiles at Edinburgh Zoo, doesn't recommend them as pets: "When dwarf crocodiles attack you they really mean business," he says. "Rottweilers can be quite calm, but dwarf crocodiles have one aim and that is to cause injury."
How do you decide whether an animal is dangerous?

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