Imagine the headline:  MAN FEEDS LIVE KITTEN TO PET SNAKE.  Imagine the outrage, the calls for arrest, people agreeing that if this isn’t forbidden by our Animal Cruelty laws, then nothing is.

Now change KITTEN to mouse, to hamster, to rabbit; and you’re describing a common practice among reptile breeders and owners.  Pet stores often stock so-called “feeders”----fish, mammals and insects bred to be fed, alive, to pet reptiles.  (Or to pet tarantulas.  Or to giant centipedes.  Sometimes filmed for “predator porn”, for kicks on Youtube.)  Often under dubious cover of “love for my animal” or “respect for nature”.

The conditions in which both “feeder” and predator are bred are often hellish:  a 2012 PETA investigation of Global Captive Breeders led to the largest animal seizure in California history, 16000 feeder rats and 600 reptiles. 

Born in unnatural horror, fated for a brutal end:  once in the reptile’s enclosure, a mouse may cower for hours until the reptile turns its attention.

The herpetophile community is itself divided on the “live feeder” issue.  Many vets, owners and breeders argue against live feeding, if only for the reptile’s sake:  rodents will sometimes bite and scratch before being devoured. 

We call upon the pet industry, on reptile lovers, to stop live feeding.  YOU are the creators and stewards of these creatures.  You owe them your care, and should never consign them to a violent death of cruel contingencies, utterly beyond human standards of mercy.  This contradiction within a community premised on love for animals, on an extension of our sympathies well into the non-human, cannot be sustained.  We ask you to seek a better way.