Welcome to Gaia! ::

I miss it. In NZ its illegal to own turantulas, and of course they dont occur naturally here. Zoos/museums/scientific facilities can own them though, for the purpose of study or education.

But I love spiders, and seek them out. I can ID many of them, and bore you to death with facts about them.

Like did you know there is actually a species of spider which drinks human blood?

But it only does it secondarily since it prefferentually feeds on female mosquitos which have recently had a blood meal (so it drinks any mamals blood as long as its passed through a mosquito).

Eh in the states you can just by them as regular pets XD.

If I was in the states there are many pets I would like, which you cant get here.

Of course since I am big on animal behaviour (have a degree in it) I of course would put them in enclosures much much bigger than most of the ones Ive seen them in, when I lived and worked in the states. (I believe animals need a lot more space then they are given in most cases).

But thats where my user name comes from

Sage = A wise person/person with lots of information

Bomb = a explosive device.

Sagebomb = explosive ammounts of info.

I cant always control when the bomb goes off emo

Indeed, if you ever go to any place that houses animals, and see them doing any repetive behaviour (like swaying, pacing, running back and forward etc) then it is a definite sign thier mental needs arent being met.

I did volenteer in animal enrichment building for a local zoo when I was in uni. That was fun. I do believe zoos need to do more to meet animals mental needs. (But totally understand the budget time issues with it, which is why I believe its crucial to develop volenteer enrichment programs).

True, but it is hard to define what the needs are (on a legal sense emo ) I feel its not as hard to figure it out. I have been to several world standard zoos, and almost all of them have failed in some way or another. Of course some of them are trying harder than others.

One thing I like about our more local zoo (local as in only a 20 min drive away at open road speeds most of the way) is that compared to most zoos its size it has much much less animals meaning much more space per animal. Most animals have pretty large paddocks. And the cheetahs which they specialise in even have a field that is only used once a day for optional exercise (chasing things on a wench).

So many zoos try and pack too many animals in a small space, because sadly people want to see lots of animals quickly, and thats what sells tickets and tickets cover expenses.

I am a conservationalist realist. Aka I believe heavily in conservation but understand that it needs to work in a economic world. Money is not going away any time soon, and as such we much accept economic realities and work to find ways to make it clear that we need to preserve things and that its a logical investment for those who have the funds.