How did we come to love exotic pets?

[Selenotypus]

For me, since I can remember I have loved the unusual and that doesn't only pertain to pets.
My earliest memory of an exotic pet was not a great one. I was about 4, I vaguely remember that I used to go house to house trying to find frogs and I did find a lot. One day I learnt two truths. 1. I loved the unusual pets much more than a cat/dog and 2. my love for my pet killed it! I was only 4 but I assume I was trying to help my pet frog and I had him in a tub of soapy water, trying to clean away the slime, of which I assumed was not good for it and it died. That was the day I learnt about death.

From than on I collected red backs, scorpions, centipedes, millipedes, any critter I could find, the first replile was a blue tongue since than I have owned all sorts... Tarantulas to Diamond pythons to Black headed pythons

I love all living creatures, however it is a little upsetting that we have made so many mistake over the past 200 years... foxes, black birds, Indian minors, cane toads, cats and dogs etc. and we've upset the balance and lost so many beautiful creatures. So while I adore them all, they are in the wrong place

 

[Morelia4life]

I started keeping snakes when I was 6 years old. I started with the colubrids, my first being a Garter snake, than on to King snakes, Ribbon Snakes, Corn Snakes Milk Snakes and so on. When I was 9 or so I got a Ball python and since them I have had Leopard Geckos, Sudan Plated Lizards, Bearded Dragons, Golden Geckos, Jungle carpet pythons, Irian Jaya carpets, Coastal Carpets, Kenyan Sand boas, Red-tailed boas, Hognose snakes, Emperor Scorpions, Tarantulas... and I think that is about it.

When I was younger, I always loved dinosaurs. My favorite was Stegasaurus (spelling) and Triceratops. Reptiles have become a part of my life and I really don't know what I would do if I couldn't keep them. Some people love cats and dogs. I love snakes and lizards.

 

[zeke]

I've never been really interested ing dogs or birds etc . But since I was a kid I remember dining through the bush trying to catch lizards,snakes and even monitors and they are the most interesting g animals to keep in my opinion

 

[lizardloco]

My experience with exotics was when I was 3-4 in Greece (birth place), and I had a wild caught greek tortoise, and a terrapin in a tank.

But when I arrived in Australia I missed having my turtles, and that is when I started searching the garden for blue-tongues, and other skinks, to catch.
Back then I didn't know about, 'overheating' a reptile, and I thought I did the right thing by putting the tank they were in out in the raw sun for a couple of hours, only to find them dead, buried under the dirt.

That is when I got a small pack of baby crickets from the pet shop. I caught a skink, put it in a tank with some dirt, water, fake plants, and hollow log type things I found in the garden.
And I got one of my old desk lamps as a heat source, I put the crickets in the tank and left him, but I still monitored him. He lasted a week until I decided to let him go!

 

[dihsmaj]

Well, I started to love herps when I was 5 (2003), my sister and her then boyfriend (now husband) gave me her boyfriend's brother's Eastern, who was, they think, 9. I had him until 2009.
But still, even before I got the Bluey I was really interested in spiders, reptiles, scorpions and insects. I used to try to catch invertebrates outside with my mate, and once we caught this big spider that looked like a redback, although it wouldn't have been because the abdomen was about 4cm in diameter and the legspan was about 10cm. I had to release it because at that time my sister was living with us and she and my mother were extremely afraid of it.
Anyway I got back into the hobby late last year when a girl from my class brought her Eastern in. I then looked into the reptiles we could keep and joined the forum, then got my Centralian and my frogs and here I am now.

 

[slim6y]

Why on earth did we release possums and wallabies into NZ? And plenty of Aussie frogs (which thrive better in NZ than in Aussie).

It's a real set back... To think we were also going to release mountain lion to control wild deer and goats.

Snakes have also recently been destroyed as they're completely illegal in NZ - though, these jungles wouldn't have survived long in the wild here, a tiger snake could certainly wreak havoc in a place like Murawai.

The one thing I haven't really understood in your OP is - How did we come to love exotic pets?

It's funny how pets is an anagram of pest!

It's good you love your natives. But, without the exotics (sheep, cattle etc) we'd have a very different lifestyle right now. In both countries!

In fact, NZ might still have the world's largest eagle - the Haast Eagle.

Imagine the moa running around as well...

How awesome would it be to go back just 500 years to see what our two countries were 'really' like!

I wonder if the fishing would have been as good

 

[noved]

my mum had a pic of me playing with red back spiders when i was three.i haven't stopped since

 

[Sezzzzzzzzz]

ive always loved animals,but only started loving snakes at the beginning of this year... i know- im a bit slower than the rest of ya's!

 

[Nighthawk]

In fact, NZ might still have the world's largest eagle - the Haast Eagle.

Imagine the moa running around as well...

Haven't you been to Arthur's Pass? There are still moa running around... they even sell boxes of moa poo at the Bealey Hotel
I'd resigned myself to never owning anything more interesting than a cat or a dog over in NZ, but I've always loved everything about snakes. Movement, mythological representation in all cultures, colour, behaviour... they're just so damn mesmerising! I was already planning a trip over here when I first met my husband, and he brought me back as a souvenir anyway. Then we had kids and bought pythons and beardies and lived happily ever after.
Don't you love fairy-tale endings?

 

[Mo Deville]

Why on earth did we release possums and wallabies into NZ? And plenty of Aussie frogs (which thrive better in NZ than in Aussie).

It's a real set back... To think we were also going to release mountain lion to control wild deer and goats.

Snakes have also recently been destroyed as they're completely illegal in NZ - though, these jungles wouldn't have survived long in the wild here, a tiger snake could certainly wreak havoc in a place like Murawai.

The one thing I haven't really understood in your OP is - How did we come to love exotic pets?

It's funny how pets is an anagram of pest!

It's good you love your natives. But, without the exotics (sheep, cattle etc) we'd have a very different lifestyle right now. In both countries!

In fact, NZ might still have the world's largest eagle - the Haast Eagle.

Imagine the moa running around as well...

How awesome would it be to go back just 500 years to see what our two countries were 'really' like!

I wonder if the fishing would have been as good

Fishing would have been crazy awsome 500 years ago lol, and if we ever get mongoose released in austrailia you can say goodbye to all snakes, they love to kill snake its what they live for haha.

 

[snakeluvver]

They're just so different that it's hard not to find them fascinating. I watched steve Irwin when I was younger and I think that really got me into them

 

[Tassie97]

They're just so different that it's hard not to find them fascinating. I watched steve Irwin when I was younger and I think that really got me into them

same!

 

[Selenotypus]

The one thing I haven't really understood in your OP is - How did we come to love exotic pets?

It's funny how pets is an anagram of pest!

It's good you love your natives. But, without the exotics (sheep, cattle etc) we'd have a very different lifestyle right now. In both countries!

I know calling them exotic is a bit of paradox depending on how you look at it.

You're right, if we didn't bring cattle, goats etc. here it'd be very different, though apparently kangaroos are good food? lol.

I suppose cows are exotic in the sense they don't come from aus and how snakes exotic in the sense of being an unusual pet!

most of it was done with good intentions, but had dire consequences. But hey, native or not, it's really us humans that do the damages, can't blame the animals

 

[SteveNT]

Why on earth did we release possums and wallabies into NZ? And plenty of Aussie frogs (which thrive better in NZ than in Aussie).

It's a real set back... To think we were also going to release mountain lion to control wild deer and goats.

Snakes have also recently been destroyed as they're completely illegal in NZ - though, these jungles wouldn't have survived long in the wild here, a tiger snake could certainly wreak havoc in a place like Murawai.

The one thing I haven't really understood in your OP is - How did we come to love exotic pets?

It's funny how pets is an anagram of pest!

It's good you love your natives. But, without the exotics (sheep, cattle etc) we'd have a very different lifestyle right now. In both countries!

In fact, NZ might still have the world's largest eagle - the Haast Eagle.

Imagine the moa running around as well...

How awesome would it be to go back just 500 years to see what our two countries were 'really' like!

I wonder if the fishing would have been as good

Here it would have been much better for down south mob, same same where I live.

If you read the journals of the early european explorers through the Murray River drainage they constantly pulled huge fish out of small creeks. Carp put an end to that.

The tribes of the lower Murray have many stories of murray cod that ate children and adults.

Not unlike that eagle bro.

We can only mourn the losses and look after what's left.

 

[slim6y]

Not to mention trout and salmon which, when introduced, must have done severe damage! It's one thing I hate about NZ - is the NZ Fish and Game - they're so high and mighty, yet all the fish and game (that we pay licences for) are exotic pests to NZ! I can't believe we actually pay to support them!!!

But, I do love a good salmon...

A funny story - I went to the Mount Cook Salmon farm here in the South Island. At the door way there was a tray of food - each bag cost $2.

I asked the attendant:

"So, you want us to buy food... To then feed your salmon... Which then fatten up... So you get more money for them?"

Her answer was - "Well.... Ummmmm... They're fun to watch jumping!"

Best business idea I have ever heard!!!

 

[SteveNT]

Both our countries have lost much cobber.

Then again I'm not sure I would like a close up with a 3meter carnivorous kangaroo or a 7 meter goanna or a marsupial lion whose teeth (behind the enormous upper and lower fangs) were fused together to make scirrors that would have sliced through bone.

All these things were here when the first people arrived. I would have loved to have seen them but it must have been a scary world for the originals!

I like trout and salmon. Here we have coral trout and threadfin salmon but the only similarity is the their beautiful eating qualities.

 

[longqi]

I was partially raised in the Mckenzie Country near Mt Cook Station
For my 10th birthday my dad gave me a jg anshultz 22 single shot
Used to get 2 bullets every day
If I didnt bring home dinner I got no bullets for a week
We lived pretty well because I dared not miss and even shot deer after I knew where to hit them
Some of the trout in lake Pukaki and Ohau are monsters
My biggest rainbow was 23lb
Biggest Brownie 26lb

Didnt reach Aus until 1979 and within less than a month was playing with slitherers

 

[Nighthawk]

You're doing well bringing down deer with the old anshultz; they're a neat little rifle to mess around with, I used to enjoy playing around with my ex's for target practice. That and the Ruger semi-auto .22 were about the only guns he felt he trusted me with. As the charming douche used to put it, "woman's guns"
You've just made me feel a whole lot better about one stage of my life Lonqi

 

[slim6y]

Here's an exotic pet that you might like:

You might have to be quick to get them though, they're getting rarer and rarer because of... well... ummmm... Exotic pests!!!

 

[dihsmaj]

Here's an exotic pet that you might like:

You might have to be quick to get them though, they're getting rarer and rarer because of... well... ummmm... Exotic pests!!!

I might have to move to NZ one day, just for the weta.