Imprisoning wildlife

Sometimes, I get the notion we're closer to Nature than is good for anyone.

I recall all too well back in the '50s when I had the crazy idea of wanting to pet a wild female northern spotted skunk on my birthday. I did, and got away without getting blasted, but the incident led me down a path I'm not proud of: I got greedy, captured her babies, then de-scented and sold them for "pets."

I also caught momma the next night. Yeah, the sweet little gal who trusted me and allowed me to pet her like a friend. I de-scented her as well, but I couldn't sell her; no one wanted an adult wild skunk, so I released her - and that's when my conscience kicked in.

I suddenly realized she had no way of protecting herself from her enemies; she could not be courted safely without her scent glands to tell her suitor she was ready to breed, and I had destroyed the other ways skunks communicate by smell.

So, I set out the live trap again and promised her I'd take her into my home and protect her for the rest of her life.

Next morning I walked into the hen house, and there she was, pacing back-and-forth in the live trap. "Oh, there you are little girl," I said in a voice that I thought she'd find soothing - and- without giving it a second thought I tucked the trap under my arm and left the hen house, just hooking the door behind me when my world came to and...

KER BLAM! The stench of skunk oil filled my lungs and burned my eyes; it was so overwhelming I couldn't breathe! I dropped the trap, and it got worse. I was actually blinded by the skunk's oils saturating the air around me. I retched and coughed and stumbled out of the putrid air, so I could at least breathe - and that's when it hit me: I didn't catch the de-scented female, I caught her partner!

Since that awful day I have made every attempt to be on a friendly basis with all of Nature's children, and try to never overstep my bounds. They have their lives, I have mine, and we should be kept as separate as possible. There's nothing that will make me groan more than when I hear someone say, "Oh, I'd love to have that sweet little baby for a pet."

Baby animals grow up and become nothing like the cute, little "pet" they were when they were small and helpless. The mule deer fawn grows up to be a teenage male, and then starts using his antlers to coax handouts out of people, and is finally shot for his persistence.

Bobcat kittens are taken from the wild for so-called "pets." When they grow up - and if allowed to remain bobcats - they're a handful. Too often, the "owners" of these carnivores pull the claws and actually defang the poor beasts; animal cruelty at its worst.

Just the other day I heard about a woman who had an expensive "pet" non-native tortoise that got very sick and died. The pet store that sold it was interested in a profit, not the tortoise's health.

As it turns out, the conditions the animal was kept in while in transit were deplorable; dumped in a box with other tortoises, pooping on each other, tumbled helter-skelter as the shipping container rattled around in a boat, or worse-yet, in the cargo hold of an airliner.

Who knows what diseases the poor animals had already picked up in the homeland, and how they would affect other animals dumped into the box with them, not to mention other resident Testudines in the pet store. Then, when the "pet" began failing and was taken to the vet to be cured.

How on earth can a local veterinarian keep up on diseases of tortoises of the world?

The up-side of all this is that native tortoises are readily available for those desiring to have one for a "pet." We don't need to import animals from other parts of the world, screwing up the ecological relationships of those habitats.

According to Ross Popenoe, executive director of the Turtle Conservancy and Behler Chelonian Center, captive-bred native tortoises in that facility are looking for good homes. In a letter to Jay Bowerman, who operated this area's foundling tortoise home for years, Ross said, "Regarding captive tortoises, if a friend of the tortoises is interested in trying again with a captive animal, just let me know and we can set the person up with one or more nice healthy hatchlings."

Buy local, Good People - but forget about "pet" skunks, fawns, raccoons and bobcats. If you must have a pet wild animal, maybe a captive-bred tortoise is a good idea, they're easier to handle, grow a lot slower, and don't cause you to stop breathing if you drop one.