Quote Originally Posted by mycolorfulheart View Post
I wrote a paper about the pet trade about a year ago!

The things that bother me the most are

1. Animals that do not make good pets, or that do make good pets but should only be sold to an experienced buyer, being so cheap and readily avaliable. An example we're all familiar with would be green iguanas. They are amazing animals but how many die because the customer was told, "Oh it won't grow any more if you keep it in a small cage. All you need to feed it is lettuce!"

When I first moved out of my mom's house and out on my own, I went looking for a low maintenance pet. My friend talked me into getting hermit crabs (I should have done research on it first, but I trusted her, and she had been told some very bad information. We've both grown from the experience and she now believes hermits shouldn't be pets.) Well, hermits are incredibly cheap, found in almost every pet store. And the amount of misleading and false information on them is incredible. Pet store employees say, "They are the easiest pets ever!" And even published books have false information on them. In reality they are extremely sensitive to humidity, heat, and other hermits. The stress from being in captivity is the reason they don't breed--that to me sends off red flags that they shouldn't be in captivity at all! They need fresh and salt water, and a varied diet far different than the fish meal blends being sold as 'hermit crab food!'

The first crab I bought was about the size of my fist and estimated to be 20 years old. (At the time he was older than I was!) He had survived so long in the wild, only to die 6 months later at my house. I tried my luck with other crabs, and eventually all died but one. I tried everything to keep them happy but none of it worked. I gave it up for adoption to a more experienced owner. Any animal that stands a better chance of survival in the wild should stay IN THE WILD. No one cares about these creatures because they are primitive crustaceans, but let me tell you they are amazing and beautiful and don't deserve to be murdered. There is alot more I could say about hermits, and my second point, but I'm late for a movie so I'll post back late!
Hey, thanks for poping in to vent! I think you are a very special person to be able to care that much for a hermit crab. I wish i had that much heart. I do believe however that we are all conected on this planet. All of us part of a much larger eco system tied together in one big strand of DNA. How many breaks in the DNA can we make before it all falls apart?
So who cares about hermit crabs and iguanas? Well what if some new virus should break out and our own survival depends on an enzime that can only be found in hermit crabs or iguanas? A large amount of our drugs come from the rain forest plants and there burning it down. We don't even know what future cures have been lost. Were just throughing it all away.
Hey nice talking to ya!