It's very crowded/dense out East. This is much the same in Japan where small exotic animals are all the rage. I wonder if folks out West simply have more room and perhaps farming backgrounds so that they often focus on the larger exotic farm/stock/range animals. Why have gliders when you have the land to have horses, buffalo, camels, goats, zebra, llama, yaks, watusi, dogs, ... There is a wide world of exotic animals that most of us just dont ever see.