Well, I have a snapping turtle, but I hesitate to call it a "pet". For starters, because it's a goddamn snapping turtle, rather than something like a dog. It will never like me. And even if I tame it enough to not bite me at the slightest provocation, we are destined to soon part ways. I didn't adopt it because I wanted a friend or companion. I took it in because I saw it as a hatchling in a hostile environment and took pity on it. Ultimate plan is to get it strong enough and big enough to live on its own, and then we part ways.
I'm also trying to start an ongoing colony of giant moths. I still have a few pupae from the winter, who haven't matured yet. And I did already get one female to mature and mate and lay eggs, and am now just hoping that the eggs are fertile and hatch soon. If all goes well, I should be able to have an ongoing colony of giant moths for as long as I desire. But again, I hesitate to call them "pets". After all, they are just fucking bugs.They're really more like "specimens".
Nice thing about the moths is that the adults cannot eat. They have only vestigial mouthparts and therefore, due to their biology, can ONLY live for about a week (at most) after emerging from their pupae. On one hand, this removes a LOT of my guilt about the whole thing. I do a fair amount of Dead Animal Art, but I generally try to limit it to animals that were already doomed. I don't want to KILL animals for art, but I totally take dead animals and pose them. So the short lifespan of these things removes a good bit of guilt. Yes I can keep them captive until they die, but they're gonna die anyway. As long as the amount that I release matches the amount that I catch, then equilibrium is maintained. Still, even without the guilt, it's kind of sad. I've gotten four of these moths and watched them die so far, and the way that they cling to life is kind of depressing. Even if guilt is removed by letting them fulfill their sole purpose of reproducing, they're still FUCKING DYING, and I have to repeatedly see them go from vibrant animals full of energy and life, to worn down wrecks just clinging on to the slightest bit of life. Seeing that happen a mere four times actually made me sad as shit.
Though, plus side...if the eggs happen to be viable, then I've got more than 200 eggs. If even only half of them actually hatch, that's 100 babies. if only a quarter of those babies mature into moths, that's 25 moths. Four agonizingly drawn out deaths may be a tragedy, but hopefully 25 agonizingly drawn out deaths will just be a statistic. With any luck, my moth colony should work out, and then I should hopefully get desensitized to all the death.
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