Taking animals out of their natural habitat

[Kithy Kitty]

People seem to do this all the time and I just can't understand it.

Of course, who didn't see a wild animal and just WANT to grab it and bring it home?

But the people that actually ignore the logic of it and do it? Bleh.

Someone on my FB recently "caught" two slider turtles and decided he was gonna keep them as pets....

I advised him what he would likely need, emphasizing that they are a lot of work and will eat a lot of money. I also told him I can't really agree with taking healthy animals from their habitat and that finding a responsible breeder and getting one that way would be a better idea. And that a tortoise would probably be a better idea than starting off with aquatic turtles.

Anyway. What do you guys think? Taking an animal from it's natural home to throw into your own home with a proper set up? That okay or not so much?  

[CrissAngelLover12345]

I too am against this, even if the animal is put in a proper set up and given an appropriate diet.. It's cruel and the animal is not accustomed to humans, which could cause it to be extremely skiddish, or aggressive towards the humans. It is also not accustomed to being in such enclosed spaces. The animal could also have all sorts of diseases and parasites that turtles bred and raised in captivity do not have. I hope the person listens to you and releases them. If he decides to get captive RES turtles, then he can do so, though hopefully he'll do research before he gets them and get a proper enclosure, proper lighting, proper filtration, and give them an appropriate diet.

I temporarily had a wild box turtle, but that was only because it had gotten hit by a car and had been injured, and it was only for a few weeks. One of its back legs was the only thing that was hurt, and it had gotten cut by its shell (My mom and I were on our way home when we saw it working on crossing the road. She pulled over and I got out of the car to move the turtle out of the road and a car came by and clipped the edge of its shell and sent it skidding to the edge of the road, the poor guy didn't get a chance to withdraw fully into its shell, so its shell ended up cutting into its leg. Thankfully, there were no other injuries and the cut wasn't very deep). I didn't want the injury to end up getting infected, so I had taken it in temporarily to allow the wound to heal. I had kept the injury clean and kept an eye on the injury until it was healed fully, while taking care of it and making sure its needs were met. Once it was fully healed, I released it back in the wild.  

[Shanna66]

i am very much agaisnt wild caught animals, especially reptiles because often times they adapt so poorly to captive life unless they were caught as babies.

not to mention its a hell of alot more work for the owner if they get a wild caught animal than a captive bred animal, more expensive too because they NEED to take those animals to the vet and checked for parasites among other things  

[Celestial Fireflies]

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I'm bumping this up because I had a (very strange) phonecall last night that totally underlined how much I agree with this.

So, a lady called asking about this lizard she found. No idea how to take care of it, and when I informed her of EVERYTHING she would have to buy (lights, food, etc.) and do for it, she seemed shocked. That's a short summary, our phone call went on for 15 minutes and she made some very strange remarks (asking when the lizard's specific "expiration date" was if it didn't eat; asking, "oh... so it can't just live in the dark in my garage?"; "can I just feed it dog food??").

The sad thing is that this is the attitude I find in an overwhelming amount of people who come in saying, "I just found this thing, help me take care of it!" I start explaining the proper setups, the food, the lights, and it's all this and that:
"I don't have room for that! This tiny critter keeper will do, won't it?" No, it really won't, but why listen to me?
"Ewww! These crickets are soo gross, isn't there anything in a can I can give it?" Well, considering what you have is a natural hunter (even moreso coming straight from the wild), chances aren't good that you'll find something it's willing to eat.
"Oh my god, those lights are so expensive! I have this lamp, it'll work, right?" Probably not. You have to have the proper heat gradient, and you have to have the right UVB. Tell me, does your desk lamp shoot off a lot of heat? Or maybe it gives off UVB rays?

Taking an animal out of its habitat is taking it out of a WILDLY bio-diverse environment where it can run for thousands of miles across its lifetime and it knows how/what to hunt. Its lighting, heat, and humidity are controlled by a nature that the animal has adapted to over the course of, oh, thousands of generations. If you're not at least willing to put the effort into duplicating this so the poor thing can live its life in the shadow of what it was meant to, please put it back! I assure you, the wild knows exactly how to take care of it. It ran across your back porch because it was there, it is not begging to be your pet.

Just about the only reason to take in an animal is if it's sick or injured and you want to rehabilitate it for release. Even then, I say if you refuse to get the proper setup, find someone (or even a rescue) who is willing to put the time, money, and effort into rehabilitating the animal.

I TOTALLY understand what it's like to see something cute and want to keep it, but people have to understand how selfish it is to keep an animal in poor conditions so that they can "own" it.  

[Melisserz]

While my younger siblings don't pull animals out of the wild for keeps, they think it's fine to keep them in tiny habitats for days on end.

Which I why I always end up releasing the poor things at night after my sibs have fallen asleep.  

[Gabrielle_AnimalLuver]

I'm pretty sure there are laws against that here in Canada. I dunno what range of animals it covers but it's the wildlife preservation act and it states keeping a wild animals as a pet is a nono. But perhaps with animals that are kept as pets like turtles it's hard to prove it was a wild caught whereas a BAT ya, that's a big nono  

[Shanna66]

Gabrielle_AnimalLuver

I'm pretty sure there are laws against that here in Canada. I dunno what range of animals it covers but it's the wildlife preservation act and it states keeping a wild animals as a pet is a nono. But perhaps with animals that are kept as pets like turtles it's hard to prove it was a wild caught whereas a BAT ya, that's a big nono

its also agasitn the law here in the US too. but most of the time these people never take the animals in to the vet or ever try to get proper care information sop the animal just dies before anyone would be able to find out about it  

[Moth Feathers]

All sorts of animals are wild-caught. ALL hermit crabs are wild-caught, for instance. Lots of aquarium fish are wild-caught too, and with some species, captive-breeding is near impossible.

It's okay so long as the people know what they're doing and the animal in question is captured legally (so in the US and UK, that means no wild-caught birds as pets, or endangered animals,etc). Poaching isn't cool!  

[Shanna66]

Moth Feathers

All sorts of animals are wild-caught. ALL hermit crabs are wild-caught, for instance. Lots of aquarium fish are wild-caught too, and with some species, captive-breeding is near impossible.

It's okay so long as the people know what they're doing and the animal in question is captured legally (so in the US and UK, that means no wild-caught birds as pets, or endangered animals,etc). Poaching isn't cool!

same with alot of reptiles, i just refuse to buy animals that are wild caught, i dont think its fair to the animal at all.

and on the subject of hermit crabs, most crabs ive gotten were so stressed from being caught and sold to the store then sold to me that they did stress molts and didnt live much longer than a week in my care. its very sad when a crab is so stressed it drops nearly all of its legs. but at least there are some people working on breeding them in captivity  

[KissJohnnyDepp]

We've take wild animals and domesticated them which I view is taking them out of their natrual environment. I view having wild animals as PETS wrong. Thats, snake, birds, fish, crabs ect. But if a wild animals is in need of help I see no problem with interfering.  

[Kithy Kitty]

I think if you buy an animal that was caught in the wold and it's testing comes back with no issues it's okay to keep IF! BIG IF!! If you can replicate it's habitat as best you can for it's adult size, lifespan and the things it needs, especially food. If they need live fish, feed 'em live fish. Whatever they need. Not always pretty (or cheap) but you don't buy a pet cause it's "cheap". Half the reward of having a pet is the efforts you make achieve an amazing effect (I love watching my fish tank at night)

You can't just throw a turtle into a fish tank, after all.  

[Shanna66]

KissJohnnyDepp

We've take wild animals and domesticated them which I view is taking them out of their natrual environment. I view having wild animals as PETS wrong. Thats, snake, birds, fish, crabs ect. But if a wild animals is in need of help I see no problem with interfering.

just want to put out there, animals like fish and reptiles arent domesticated, even if they are bred in captivity. for the most part they will still have the same personality as their wild relatives with the exception of a couple morphs that are prone to having different personalities

there is a huge difference between an animal thats domesticated and an animal that has been bred in captivity.