Comments on: Mystery Kangaroos Again

By: kittenz

kittenz — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 12:02:54 +0000

There are quite a few wallabies that can tolerate cold weather.

By: pbro

pbro — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 08:49:58 +0000

Seems like Wisconsin would be rather cold for these Creatures to manage, even if they find adequate forrage.

Otherwise, feral Kangaroos sounds fine to me, and I wish them luck finding their niche and making all the Joeys they can…

By: kittenz

kittenz — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 01:00:30 +0000

You would not believe how many pet stores in this country have various exotic pets for sale. In many areas there are either no regulations at all for exotics (except for those banned by federal law), or the local authorities don’t know and/or don’t enforce existing regulations.

One of my clients bought a wallaby in a small pet store in Pikeville, KY. Another bought a pair of Arctic foxes (called silver foxes in the pet trade) at a different small pet store during the same month in the same town. And just across the border in WV, another client found an African lion cub at a pet store in Logan, WV! Not only did the pet store have the lion cub for sale for $1000, they even let two teenaged boys take the cub home to show to their parents to see if they could buy it!

It generally isn’t the big chain pet stores that sell exotics like foxes and big cats. Usually it is small mom-and-pop type, privately owned pet stores. Not all small pet stores sell irresponsibly, but hundreds do. Maybe thousands do. Nobody even knows how many exotic animals are sold in the USA each year, but the numbers have to be staggering.

And a LOT of those animals end up abandoned in the countryside.

By: rhoadesb

rhoadesb — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 19:05:26 +0000

Non native creatures do turn up in odd places. I imagine many are lost from zoos, abandoned pets, etc..

By: kittenz

kittenz — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 18:03:21 +0000

People sometimes keep the smaller kangas like wallabies as pets – once.

They don’t make good pets. Heck, they don’t make real good zoo animals, either. They are not affectionate in the way that dogs and cats are, they are difficult to contain, they are somewhat messy, and they can be surprisingly aggressive at times.

By: twblack

twblack — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 15:21:19 +0000

I would not think a Roo or Wallabee would make a good pet myself anyway. It is a shame what the exotic pet trade do to some of these aminals.

By: MrInspector

MrInspector — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 03:39:19 +0000

Baby roos and wallabees are cute as a button, but they quickly get to be a handfull. Like all kids, they start out sweet and cute and get obnoxious as they get older, but most people are less inclined to put in the effort for a giant rat. For the average pet owner, I suggest a dog, cat, or maybe a smallish rodent. At least until we find a kangaroo whisperer.

By: Trapster

Trapster — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 00:39:25 +0000

People sometimes will keep wallabies as pets and then they escape, they look like a small kangaroo. Perhaps that is one in the photo above. One escaped when I lived near Tampa about 10 years ago and wreaked hopping havoc all around town. I watched some of the chase live on TV from their chase helicopter. Everytime the police thought they had it cornered it would just leap over something, it was so funny to watch everyone in the room had tears in their eyes from the laughter.