In seeking a standard, what qualifies someone to be an "Exotic Animal Trainer"

I am pleased that we have a number of young animal trainers reading this blog and offering their insight and thoughts, people like Adam, Casey, Mike, Ryan are the next generation. Hopefully they can organize and have a great future. In order to rebuild they have to be aware of what went wrong, how others have dealt with the very same issues, and hopefully have a direction to the future.

Hopefully we can keep this discussion open, and continue with thoughts and ideas. The asking of questions is the most important tool for learning.

"What makes a qualified exotic animal trainer. At this point in time it has been the success and longevity of the trainer" Mike Swain

If history is studied with an open mind, we may be able to answer a lot of our own questions and thoughts.
Mike, The picture above was accepted as "animal training," and each generation was "qualified." As there is no market for our trained animals, as there o is in the breed horse industry, I suggest the product we are selling is different. We are selling our show, production, exhibition or what you may choose to call it. If it has fallen out of favor do we change or do we continue with what we have done for years. The folks above had a long tradition of many generations and hundreds of years of monkey training, and dancing bear training, which was very popular. They would not change because of that tradition. Where are they now?
To reference the Arabian Horse industry, when the breed went from the largest registry in the United States to the fifth in a span of about 10 years. One of the things they learned was that people had the idea that Arabians were crazy, psycho, lunatics and they were afraid to buy them or have them as they would be problems. The sales which inflated the value of a horse, later found to be virtually worthless also was a major problem. Massive productions attended by move stars which created excitement for buying, and later discovered to be smoke and mirrors(sound like the Best 0 The Best) turned away thousands. The registry realized it was how they were presenting the product to the public, with the fire extinguishers, the hot shots that Jody mentioned she saw, the whipping into a frenzy to give that fire, even reports of cocaine blown up their noses before they showed. Once it was stopped and the horse was trained and presented differently the registry has gradually increased. They had their last "STAR WARS SALE OF THE YEAR" in 1984. Will the registry ever be number one again? I don't think so, because that suspicion will always be there. But they will increase at a steady pace, as they now have a standard and organization.