Wild animals farmed for ‘cute’ snaps on Instagram
Exotic species are being bred in cruel conditions and make unsuitable pets, charities warn
WILD animals from rainforests and deserts are being farmed and sold as pets as Instagram users seek “cute” pictures for their social media feeds.
Welfare charities have warned that exotic animals such as sugar gliders and fennec foxes are not suitable pets, but that they are often bred in cruel, “puppy farm” conditions.
Sugar gliders, small, rainforestdwelling possums with grey fur, pink noses and starry eyes, are the subject of hundreds of thousands of posts showing them as pets on Instagram.
Fennec foxes, desert animals with large, pointy ears and a cartoonish face, are also hugely popular on social media, with some people buying them as an attractive alternative to a dog or a cat. Many websites sell the animals for as little as £150, with no education about the creatures required before purchase. The Sunday nday Telegraph has seen online evidence of sugar gliders sold in hamster cages.
The RSPCA and other animal experts have warned the animals can die of stress when taken out of their natural habitat.
Iris Ho, a senior specialist for wildlife programme and policy at Humane Society International, said: “The trend towards buying ‘Instagrammable’ animals such as fennec foxes and sugar gliders is extremely worrying. Homes are simply not appropriate environments for these wild animals. “Purchasing them as pets also fuels the exotic pet trade, which rips animals from the wild or breeds them in facilities for commercial profits akin to cruel puppy mills.
“For every fennec fox or sugar glider purchased in the UK many more have suffered and died in transit, in breeding facilities or from stress or poor treatment when captured in the wild.
“Instagram shows a filtered snapshot, and not the immense time, effort and resources it takes to properly care for these animals, or the suffering they go through when kept as pets.”
An RSPCA spokesman said: “We do see these sorts of animals coming into RSPCA care as people have taken them on without properly understanding their specialist needs having seen them on social media and online.
“Sugar gliders live in Australia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. They naturally spend their lives high up in the trees where they glide for 50m [164ft] or more between branches.
“Fennec foxes are native to northern Africa where they are adapted to live in dry desert environments, roaming over large areas and digging burrows during the day to sleep with their family.”