Ten Fast Facts about Captive Exotic Animals

I know I haven't posted anything in a long time, but this morning I saw this on Facebook and just had to share it with everyone.  Animals don't have a voice, whether they are wild animals or pets, we MUST speak out for them.

1***Captive exotic animals are abused and exploited in a variety of settings, including research and product testing, the entertainment industry, fur farms, and the exotic “pet” trade.

2***Keeping wild animals in captivity is inherently cruel, as it deprives them of the ability to freely engage in instinctual behaviors in their natural environment.

3***Even when bred in captivity, exotic animals retain all of their natural instincts. They cannot be considered “domesticated” or “tamed.”

4***Every year, captive exotic animals are involved in incidents in which humans are injured or even killed.

5***Although many industries using captive exotic animals claim to be aiding in conservation, very few captive breeding programs actually address the real threats facing imperiled animals in the wild, such as habitat destruction.

6***The demand for wild animals as “pets” or for use in entertainment harms populations of these animals in the wild by increasing the likelihood of poaching and wild capture.

7***Whether in the zoo or the circus, wild animals produced in captive breeding programs are almost never released into the wild; instead, they are doomed to a life in captivity

8***It’s a myth that public display of wild animals is necessary to engage people. Many wild animals, including several whale and sea turtle species, enjoy a high degree of public interest and concern despite having never been kept in captivity and put on public display. And many children develop a keen interest in dinosaurs despite having never seen one in the wild.

9***Industries using captive exotic animals also claim that they have educational value — but what they really teach is that it is acceptable to use animals for human amusement. And since captive wild animals often exhibit abnormal behaviors due to captivity-induced stress, they fail to teach audiences about the real nature of wild animals.

10***Industries that use captive wild animals, such as the circus, frequently engage in abusive training methods, such as the use of hooks, chains, whips, electric prods, and blunt instruments.

Source: BornFreeUSA.org

Finnegan the Squirrel

Originally published on Mutiply November 23rd 2006
This is the actual true story of a squirrel who was found injured and nursed by this lady and her dog who was having a litter of puppies adopted it as her own. I have verified the story on Snopes.
I got this in my mail today, and I had seen it before, but I'm sure some of you haven't, so I thought I would post it here.

For about as long as she can remember, Debby Cantlon says, friends and strangers have brought her animals in need. So it wasn't much of a surprise when someone asked her if she'd care for a newborn squirrel found at the base of a tree somewhere near Renton.

Debby Cantlon, who plans to release Finnegan, the young squirrel, back into the wild, bottle-fed the infant squirrel after it was brought to her house.

When Cantlon took in the tiny creature and began caring for him, she found herself with an unlikely nurse's aide: her pregnant Papillon, Mademoiselle Giselle.

Finnegan was resting in a nest in a cage just days before Giselle was due to deliver her puppies.

Cantlon and her husband watched as the dog dragged the squirrel's cage twice to her own bedside before she gave birth.

Cantlon was concerned, yet ultimately decided to allow the squirrel out and the inter-species bonding began.

Finnegan rides a puppy mosh pit of sorts, burrowing in for warmth after feeding, and eventually working his way beneath his new litter mates.

Two days after giving birth, mama dog Giselle allowed Finnegan to nurse; family photos and a videotape show her encouraging him to suckle alongside her litter of five pups.

Now, Finnegan mostly uses a bottle, but still snuggles with his "siblings" in a mosh pit of puppies, rolling atop their bodies and sinking in deeply for a nap.

Finnegan and his new litter mates, five Papillion puppies, get along together as if they were meant to.

Finnegan naps after feeding.

Finnegan makes himself at home with his new litter mates, nuzzling nose-to-nose for a nap after feeding.
The following is the story as extrapolated from Snopes.

Origin

It isn't at all unusual for an orphaned infant of one species to be accepted by a litter of a completely different species. Dogs, cats, and squirrels are among a variety of mammals whose females will often raise another's offspring when it is introduced into their own litter — nursing, washing, protecting, and playing with the newcomer as if it were one of her own.

Such was the case with Finnegan the squirrel, who was found injured and malnourished in the Seattle area in September 2005, when he was but a few days old. He was brought to Debby Cantlon, an area resident with a reputation for taking in sick and injured animals and nursing them back to health.
What happened next was a bit unexpected. Ms. Cantlon reported that her black and white Papillon dog, Mademoiselle Giselle, who was pregnant at the time, twice dragged the kennel in which Finnegan was being cared for across the house and deposited it next to her own doggie bed:

"She would go and take the kennel and drag it through the dining room, through the kitchen and the hallway and park it next to her bed. I didn't know if she wanted to the squirrel to eat it or to nurse it."

After Mademoiselle Giselle gave birth to her pups but continued to pay as much (or more) attention to Finnegan than to her own litter, Ms. Cantlon decided to let Finnegan out of his cage and see what happened. And what happened was that Mademoiselle Giselle adopted Finnegan as one of her own:

"I just gave her the squirrel and she was just ecstatic. She was all over him — lick, lick, lick, lick, lick. Instinct is a wonderful thing. It sort of takes over and tells you what to do."

Ms. Cantlon said that once Finnegan learned how to forage for food on his own she planned to release him back into the wild.

I wish I knew if Finnegan actually made it back into the wild, but there was nothing further written about it.