Target: Dr. Jeff Richards, Chair of the Animal Care Committee, Canada
Goal: Encourage the Animal Care Committee to maintain animal welfare with improved cage standards for pet rodents.
Entering pet stores or opening most webpages, people are persuaded to believe that small animals are supposed to live in tiny cages. The minimum standards for some pet cages are as small as 100 square inches per single cage, and 15 square inches per animal in a group cage, with only 7.0 inches of height.
Hamsters, for example, run as far as five and a half miles per night in the wild. Their domesticated relatives cannot follow their natural behavior in a cage that is scarcely bigger than a shoebox. The use of exercise wheels does not justify the pitiful size of the cages. Most rodents like complexity in their habitat, which cannot be provided in tiny cages.
Rodents in small cages are forced to live in their feces unless their enclosures are cleaned often. Excessive cleaning of the animals’ housing leads to stress, and in some cases that stress leads to cannibalism.
The minimum standards for rodent cages have to be improved to ensure the animals’ well-being. Sign this petition to support helpless pets in Canada, and change the regulation for cage standards.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Dr. Richards,
Pet owners in Canada are deceived by minimum cage standards. With cages as small as 100 square inches per single cage, animals die as a consequence.
Hamsters are incapable of following their instinct of running up to five and a half miles per night, because of their small habitat. The use of exercise wheels does not compensate for cages the size of a shoebox. Most rodents are active animals that like to climb, but it is made impossible for them to do so in tiny cages. Also, small cages have to be cleaned more often than larger cages and too much cleaning can lead to stress, which can result in cannibalism in rodents.
European countries offer high standards for rodent cages and Canada should follow that lead. Rodents are the same no matter in what country they live in. Pets have to be kept at their highest living standards.
The cruelty of imprisoning thousands of rodents in tiny cages must come to an end. Please implement measures to change the regulations for cage sizes in Canada.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo Credit: cdrussorusso
Tell that to my hamster Fuzzybear. Back in 2003, I put her in a cage and yes it was big but not enough room for her. She kept biting it and shaking it quite vigorously! I DOUBLED the size but to no avail. I even added a big ball to give her room. She carved a hole in the plastic so I GOT the message! I let her run around in the room. I hamster proofed it for her safety. About a few months later I found out that she was getting out of room by going under the door! 😀 You cannot make this up! RIP FuzzyBear! She died in 12/2005. She was about 2 yrs of age.
Stop animal abuse! Death penalties fro animal torturers!!
An even higher ideal is to stop feeding into the whole, grizzly “pocket pet” industry which is rife with horrendous abuse and death for the majority of these poor animals!!! The videos of what happens at the “supply” end are excruciating to watch. Look some up!
This entire industry needs to be banned outright. But since that’s not likely to happen soon enough, curbing this would be best accomplished by consumers wisening up and stopping putting their own selfish WANTS ahead of the animals’ NEEDS (to stay in their indigenous habitats), by not buying any of these animals, period. ADOPT/RESCUE, DON’T SHOP.
CAGING rodents, birds, ANY ANIMALS is egregiously inhumane.
Animal abusers globally must have the death penalty applied to them!
You are so right!!
As usually Canada…