I'm conflicted on "exotic" pets wit the number of them i love dearly LOL. My Red Tail fully grown, would be fully capable of drowning me. However the reason they are fairly safe to keep as pets, is that they are one of the few species of large Catfish capable of learning who their owners are, and loving them. I know of a dude who had one in a pool and he'd hop in, and his Red Tail would swim up to him and play.
I'd love to have a Piraiba as a pet, or a Goonch, or a Jau, but not only do I NOT have the space (Imagine a fish that easily gets larger than a human, and in fact gets to large they eat them) that's a huge amount of water you'd need to keep one, and even though when I had Piranhas as pets a simple partition could keep you safe during cleaning, even bullet proof glass wouldn't stop a Piraiba from nailing you if it wanted to.
Wolves.... I like dogs, I LOVE Wolves... In Michigan it's legal if it's 2% Dog.... So it can be 98% Wolf but has to have some Dog in there. I doubt me nabbing a baby Wolf and smoking Chemdog with it is what the DNR means so, no Wolf for me as of yet. Same thing with a Jaguar or a Leopard.... I LOVE Cats, and I LOVE the Leopard Print / Jaguar Print pattern, so having one of those would be wonderful, but once that Cat is 40+ pounds.... I'm totally on the menu, and can only hope that it loves me back enough to let me go.
Again, I don't go to the Zoo.... I'd ride a Jaguar right out and to the car, cause, the fuck they gonna do ? A 300 pound top predator.... LOL.
Wels Catfish are illegal in Michigan (And pretty much every state as far as I know) and though they are totally adorable when they're 1 foot long babies, they grow HUGE. There'd be no hopping in with him for a swim once he was over 50 pounds, because they're capable of drowning you. And an adult, much worse. Same with the Goonch which is totally legal; After he's over 6 feet long....And people in India report them at over 10 feet which is large enough to fit a grown man in the stomach.
The Struggle is real; Some people see creeping death, I see a snuggle pile. Don't take me to a Zoo without bail money and a tranq dart. Or a pound of Cheese; Whatever you got to work with haha.