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| PET GAZETTE | TALKING POINT
TALKING POINT
Has the internet affected the sale of certain animals?
F
rom ‘Thumb monkeys’ to
French Bulldogs, the internet
is full of cute videos of pets
from across the globe. With
sharing capabilities at the
touch of a button, social media
has become a popular place for owners
to share images of their pets, whether
that’s a puppy or a parrot. What impact is
this having on our pets though? Tickled to
Death: Analysing Public Perceptions of ‘Cute’
Videos of Threatened Species looked at the
link between social media and ‘cute’ videos
of slow loris. They found that one in ten
commentators wrote that they wanted a loris
as a pet on a Youtube video. With technology
at our fingertips the internet has changed
the way to purchase, find information and
live our daily lives.
We spoke to industry experts about
how the internet has influenced the sale
of certain animals.
BRITISH VETERINARY
ASSOCIATION, PRESIDENT,
GUDRUN RAVETZ
“The internet has affected the sale of all pets.
We live in a click-and-collect culture that
encourages impulse buying, and we’ve heard
stories of people ordering puppies online
and having them delivered to their doorstep
in a box! When it comes to our pets, this is
simply not acceptable.
“At last year’s Environment Committee
inquiry into pet welfare in England, we
emphasised our calls for new and updated
legislation around the buying and selling
of domestic pets – both traditional pets
and non-traditional/exotic - that is fit for
purpose in the internet age we live. We
also proposed an online test to ascertain if
prospective owners can demonstrate basic
knowledge of how to care for the species
they are intending to buy. In the meantime,
the Pet Advertising Advisory Group, of which
BVA is a member, is campaigning hard to
ensure websites that allow the advertising of
animals for sale do so responsibly.
“Pets must be purchased with health and
welfare as the priority, rather than making
an impulse buy based on looks alone. We’d
www.petgazette.biz
always recommend speaking to your local
vet, who is ideally placed to offer advice on
choosing the right pet from the right place.”
INTERNATIONAL ANIMAL
RESCUE, PHILY KENNINGTON
WHO LED THE TICKLING IS
TORTURE CAMPAIGN
“Slow lorises are cute, there’s no doubt
about it. And nowadays there is an insatiable
appetite for watching cute animals doing
cute things on the internet. But viewer
beware. When it comes to videos depicting
animals apparently willingly and happily
doing unusual or unnatural things, all is often
not what it seems. We should all exercise our
critical judgement to question the integrity
of what we are seeing before getting carried
away by the cuteness.
“Online videos showing slow lorises
being tickled, eating rice balls or holding
tiny umbrellas may seem innocuous to the
uninitiated. However, such videos are fuelling
a deadly trade in lorises that are captured
from the wild and sold as pets. The craze for
cute pet lorises has caused their numbers in
the wild to plummet and brought the species
perilously close to extinction. Once captured,
the lorises are crammed into overcrowded,
poorly ventilated containers and transported
to markets to be sold. For every three lorises
taken from the wild, only one will survive the
journey. The dealers in the markets then clip
the lorises’ teeth out to make them easier to
handle and sell as pets. Behind these cute
videos lies a horror story of pain and suffering.
“One must also question the clear welfare
implications for the lorises directly involved
in the videos. Slow lorises are shy nocturnal
primates living in the shady forests of
Southeast Asia. The videos show them in a
completely alien environment, unable to
express natural behaviours and being fed on
an inappropriate and unsuitable diet. The
lorises in these videos may appear to be ‘cute,
calm and loved’ but the reality behind them
is a grim one.
“By ‘liking’ and ‘sharing’ videos of wild
animals like lorises being kept as pets
people are unwittingly supporting a trade
which causes terrible cruelty to individual
animals and playing an active part in the
dramatic decline of an entire species. So
always be alert when watching online videos
of wild animals performing unnatural acts
in unnatural environments and think twice
before giving them your seal of approval.”
BLUE CROSS, HEAD OF PUBLIC
AFFAIRS, BECKY THWAITES
“The growth of the internet has vastly
increased both the number of pets sold
and also the range of species available
to consumers.
“We are concerned that the internet has
fuelled a growth in popularity of more exotic
pets which often have extremely complex
welfare needs that are difficult to meet within
the home environment.
At the click of a button, a consumer with
little to no knowledge can purchase a large
snake species such as boa constrictors or
July 2017