>From: Amber White <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Re: Frozen gerbils for sale in Florida!
>Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 19:04:59 EST
>
>I know this is going to be something that might start a long argument, and
>I'm SO not trying to tell anyone that snake-keeping is wrong, but I don't
>like it. Yes, I already know that animals eat other animals in the wild,
>and
>I'm fine with that because it's a part of ecological balance. But in the
>wild, the animal prey also has a chance for escape. When you put a mouse
>(or
>any other animal) into a cage with a snake, how much chance does it have
>for
>escape? I guess it's kind of the same when you think about humans raising
>cows and pigs and other animals just to be slaughtered, and I don't
>necessarily like THAT idea, either, but to each his own...I just try not to
>eat meat. ;)
Hey Amber,
I can understand your point of view, and in fact I agree with it, in theory.
But the fact is that society, whether I personally like it or not, does
tend to want to domesticate, and make pets of, wild things, and at one time
all the animals we currently view as "traditional" pets were at one time
wild--even gerbils! :-)
So.......if they've been domesticated, to whatever degree, then they have to
eat. My son, a long time ago, had a snake. I loved that snake! He was a 6
foot boa, and he'd hang around my neck while I did dishes, and burrow under
my hair, and slide down my arm and play with the soap bubbles. As a pet, he
was wonderful. But I never did get over the fact that he had to eat live
mice to live. The pet store that we bought the mice from told me that it's
possible to train a snake, if you start at birth, to eat already-dead
rodents.
Ronni
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