3 ms·

these guys are desert tanks - often sold as adorable babies to buyers who don't realise they live up to 120 years (therefore generational pet) and can get up to

these guys are desert tanks - often sold as adorable babies to buyers who don't realise they live up to 120 years (therefore generational pet) and can get up to 150lbs in weight. They are the third largest land species of tortoise, behind only the Aldabra and Galapagos. need sunny and dry (S.California, Arizona, Texas), a massive and secure enclosure (i.e concrete walls they can't climb over ideally) and a lot of grass / hay to feed them on. these guides are great, but really the first line should be 'not suitable as pets'!

jqpabc123 4y ago
'not suitable as pets'! Absolutely! It should be illegal to sell these in "pet" stores. Doing so is abuse --- of both the animal and the unsuspecting buyer.
- hunglee2 4y ago
  100% - reputable breeders only!
- pvaldes 4y ago
  Illegal wildlife trade must end, period. But there is lately an ideological and pseudoreligious trend targeting the pet stores and questioning the people that has pets. In Spain is illegal since a few years having a ball python as pet and a new law passed in 2022 make illegal that a children breeds a hamster, or a bunny, or a canary without a breeder permit and this is a nonsense and mistake of planetary dimensions. We will see how this ends, but I'm not hopeful about it. This world looks more and more like being filled with simple but incorrect decisions made by young forms of AI that really don't understand neither humans or the world. Avoid youngsters to be exposed to animals because children could fail and kill pets, is one of the worse ideas in the human history. Children need to fail and deal with the consequences to become stable adults. Your robotic dog will not clean you when you are elder I would prefer people choosing a [legally adquired] long lived sulcata tortoise over choosing a cat in Australia, all the time. Much easier to keep contained and care for in arid places, much more sustainable to feed (not need to spend gas to import chilean anchovies from the other coin of the planet), and in general, less harmful for the ecosystems
  - jqpabc123 4y ago
    Much easier to keep contained No, they're not. You're making the same erroneous assumption as most unsuspecting buyers. Sulcata turtles can easily burrow under an ordinary fence. If kept indoors, they will literally dig through your walls to escape. These animals are built to roam and determined to do so in search of food and a mate. They will work to destroy anything preventing them from doing so --- even if it means destroying themselves in the process.
    - pvaldes 4y ago
      still easier to contain than a cat

jqpabc123 4y ago

'not suitable as pets'! Absolutely! It should be illegal to sell these in "pet" stores. Doing so is abuse --- of both the animal and the unsuspecting buyer.

hunglee2 4y ago
100% - reputable breeders only!
pvaldes 4y ago
Illegal wildlife trade must end, period. But there is lately an ideological and pseudoreligious trend targeting the pet stores and questioning the people that has pets. In Spain is illegal since a few years having a ball python as pet and a new law passed in 2022 make illegal that a children breeds a hamster, or a bunny, or a canary without a breeder permit and this is a nonsense and mistake of planetary dimensions. We will see how this ends, but I'm not hopeful about it. This world looks more and more like being filled with simple but incorrect decisions made by young forms of AI that really don't understand neither humans or the world. Avoid youngsters to be exposed to animals because children could fail and kill pets, is one of the worse ideas in the human history. Children need to fail and deal with the consequences to become stable adults. Your robotic dog will not clean you when you are elder I would prefer people choosing a [legally adquired] long lived sulcata tortoise over choosing a cat in Australia, all the time. Much easier to keep contained and care for in arid places, much more sustainable to feed (not need to spend gas to import chilean anchovies from the other coin of the planet), and in general, less harmful for the ecosystems
- jqpabc123 4y ago
  Much easier to keep contained No, they're not. You're making the same erroneous assumption as most unsuspecting buyers. Sulcata turtles can easily burrow under an ordinary fence. If kept indoors, they will literally dig through your walls to escape. These animals are built to roam and determined to do so in search of food and a mate. They will work to destroy anything preventing them from doing so --- even if it means destroying themselves in the process.
  - pvaldes 4y ago
    still easier to contain than a cat