In Reply to: Re: Think about what's best for SG's posted by Katie on June 06, 2000 at 21:06:56:

: 1) I am not suggesting that everyone let their captive-bred sugar gliders go. I am saying that it would be in the best interests of the sugar gliders if we were to stop breeding them since they can't live their lives anywhere near their potential. Gliders do not want us; they want their own kind and wide open spaces. They're nice to people who tear them from their parents at a tender age, make orphans of them, and force them to be dependent.

: 2) Just because some people aren't allowed to have a dog or cat doesn't make it alright to deprive an undomesticated animal of its home.

: 3) Dogs, cats, rabbits, and ferrets have all been domesticated for hundreds and hundreds of years. Plus they never had wings or gliding membranes to begin with, which is something that of course cannot be utilized in a house.

: Domesticated animals have much smaller home ranges; ranges that are compatible with houses and apartments. Feral cats and dogs have been altered so much by breeding practices over the milleniums that they are destructive to the environment; these are truly domesticated animals.

: 4) The habitat destruction needs to stop of course, but taking the wildlife and sticking them in our little houses is not going to solve anything, particularly since the sugar glider is NOT endangered.

: I am informed actually, and I've spent a great deal of time researching sugar gliders (no, not just internet babble, but articles in scientific journals.) Sugar gliders have huge home ranges in the wild and live in little colonies within larger congregations of gliders; we can't even hope to replicate this, not even with great big aviaries, let alone small cages in little apartments.

: I am a pre-vet student, a vet tech, a wildlife rehabilitator-in-training, and I always try to think about how I would feel in an animal's place. I don't have to think twice to know that I would choose to live 7 glorious years in natural habitat instead of 12 cooped up in a little cage most of the time, unable to glide, unable to forage for my own food, unable to see new things that I wanted to, unable to find new mates, unable to live a free life...

: Love your pets as always, but I strongly urge people to stop supporting the use of these animals for the pet trade.

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