She laughs a little sheepishly. And on special occasions, we eat them. A few miles away, Vittorio Tassinari gingerly maneuvers bamboo into the pen of his pet jaguar, one of two he has kept for five years. A few years ago, Tassinari built a bigger block of cages and moved the cats to his restaurant, where they live off an ample diet of leftover beef and chicken. He has also kept a puma here, and once a crocodile in a small fish pond.
People love the wild animals.
She wanted birds around her. But ornithologist David Wiedenfeld, who has researched wild parrot populations all over Nicaragua, takes a different view. In Nicaragua, at least, pets are just as common in rural areas as in the capital, he says. People here like pets. Nicaragua remains a major source country for the international wildlife trade, both legal and illegal.