Ep 9: Are Animal Cafés Ethical?

In today's episode, we discuss the pros and cons of popular animal cafés around the world. Should we be visiting them?

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Special Thanks to:

Martha at May Cause Wanderlust
https://maycausewanderlust.com/ 

Sarah at Sarah's Sojourns
https://sarahssojourns.com/

Due to a computer error, my sources for today's episode were deleted from my computer during production. I'm sorry for the inconvenience! 

Transcript

0:00

humane nature is an animal tourism podcast with discussions about animal abuse, injury and medicine listener discretion is advised. Welcome back, everybody. Thank you so much for listening. I'm your host Stacia. And I am back well rested and ready to kick some ass. I was on. Oh, hi Loki. I was on vacation last week in Florida visiting some family down there. Escaping the winter weather in Seattle. It was beautiful, stunning Sarasota, Florida. Definitely needed that break. And I'm very happy to be back. And I'm happy to be working on this podcast again. And yeah, so let's get started. Okay, so I know I told you guys in the last episode that this week we were going to be talking about swimming with dolphins. However, I am going to have a special guests for you guys. And we were unable to record until this week because of me being on vacation last week. So that episode will be moved until next week, and we will have a very special guest on with us. And this week, I have decided we are going to be talking about maybe you saw it in the show description. The title of today's episode, we're going to be talking about animal cafes. So I don't know if you guys have ever been to one animal cafes are really really big, especially in Asia and Japan has the most they've really taken off in Japan. But first, let's take off with some travel and wildlife news as we do. So travel first, international travelers can now enter Italy by showing their proof of complete vaccination without quarantining or testing prior to arriving. So that means I think it's nine months or not nine months, nine weeks after your second dose of Pfizer, Moderna or, you know, even a day after you've received your booster. So if you've gotten your booster, your third vaccine or second, if your first one was Johnson and Johnson, you can now travel without having to do COVID testing without having to quarantine to Italy. And Hawaii is now lifting it's COVID-19 testing, quarantining and vaccination requirements. I don't know how much I agree with that. Obviously, it's not my decision. But I do know that a lot of the Hawaiian natives a lot of the especially people of color in Hawaii are really suffering right now because of the spread of COVID 19. So please don't go to Hawaii right now, if you're unvaccinated or if you are feeling unwell. They you know, as an island don't have as many resources available to them. And you don't need to be spreading that but Hawaii is open to travelers once more. Now for some wildlife news. Solar energy facilities meant to provide more environmentally friendly energy are negatively impacting the endangered Florida panther by limiting its habitat and ability to move and hunt. So this is a bummer. This is an unintended consequence for something that was meant to be good. We were putting out all these solar energy facilities to try to do cleaner energy down in Florida. And it is now limiting the habitat in honestly another form of habitat loss for the Florida panther which is endangered down there. So scientists are trying to look more into that and see if they can come up with a solution to help the Panthers. An accurately named snot bot drone can track whales health and populations by catching droplets of their exhales above water in petri dishes. So the way that this drone works is it stays well above the surface and kind of tracks the movements of whales down below so far enough that the whales don't even really know it's there. It's very quiet, very stealthy. And then when the whales come up to the surface to breathe, where they let out that huge exhale of you know, snot and mucus and sea water and all that good stuff. It swoops down with some petri dishes and collect samples and then delivers those samples to scientists on land. And this, they can stay much further away than researchers on boats. So This is a much less intrusive way to study these whales than than scientists out on boats trying to collect them. The whale exhale can actually squirt up to 12 feet above the surface of the water. So even collecting the sample, they don't need to get that close. And this can determine a lot from the genetic material of the whales not just gross, but really cool. It does help determine population health of blue and humpback whales especially, which have been especially difficult to study in the past. So we are starting to learn more about these whales, which is awesome using today's technology. In a few weeks from recording this, so today is March 7, which is also my second wedding anniversary Happy Anniversary babe. In a few weeks, scientists will dust the surface of the Indian Ocean with artificial feces to see if it is possible to reboot marine ecosystems that have been starved of whale poop nutrients. So they have discovered that whale poop is essential for the health of certain marine ecosystems. So whales poop at the surface of the ocean instead of down deep, because apparently I learned a lot reading into this. When they're, you know, down deeper under the water, the pressure on their backsides is so high that they cannot relieve themselves. So they when they go up to the surface to breathe, they also relieve themselves up there. And whale feces float at the top of the water. And the nutrients helps, you know, helps the water in the area helps spread nutrients in the water. It helps feed fish lots of fish come up to feed off of it. It also helps phytoplankton grow. And phytoplankton actually produce more oxygen, than trees by like, a lot. I don't have the actual numbers written down. But I have heard somewhere that trees only produce about maybe 20 to 30% of the world's oxygen maybe like I think actually way less than that I may be pulling those numbers out of my ass but phytoplankton are quintessential to fighting climate change. And hopefully this artificial whale poop will help more of it form and help save our oceans as well as our you know, ozone and to help fight climate change. Finally, the Royal Horticultural Society in the UK has no longer no longer has slugs and snails listed as pests in order to promote healthier garden ecosystems. So they no longer have snails and slugs listed as pests. That's awesome. So people following them should no longer be trying to kill off the slugs and snails. They are realizing how important they are to those small ecosystems. Most of these slugs and snails do not eat the actual plants in the garden, only nine of 44 species of them do eat the plants. And when they do it's very small amounts. Instead they eat mostly dead matter. So they'll eat you know, leaves that have died or, you know, pieces of bark that have fallen off the trees, things like that. They are also important food for other garden animals such as hedgehogs and birds and I love hedgehogs. Hedgehogs are my favorite animal. So it is extremely important. If you guys have slugs and snails in your garden, that means you're doing something right it is healthy. So keep those guys around. let nature do its thing. Okay, so we are going to get started talking about animal cafes all over. I'm not going to focus specifically on the Japanese ones. But the majority of the research that I was looking through did their studies in either Japan mostly in Tokyo and then in Seoul, South Korea as well. I want to give a special thank you and shout out to Martha at may cause wanderlust and Sara at Sarah's sojourns. They are two travel bloggers that responded to me on Twitter I put kind of a last minute tweet out asking if any of you guys had ever been to an animal Cafe, and they both had been to multiples and they sent me over their experience. And I will talk about them in just a little bit. But thank you so much, Martha and Sarah. I will link their travel blogs in the description. You should go check both really great. So let's start out by talking about the them out. They're history of the animal Cafe because this is a fairly new thing. The cat cafes in Japan peaked in 2009. These emerged due to the healing boom that first emerged in Japan in the early 1990s after a recession. So these were shown to help ease social and economic anxieties. Many are for adults only in Japan. Some allow older children like teenagers 13 years and older. This was part of the country's boom to kind of promote more self service.... I can't talk today self care, to promote self care and help ease various anxieties that came about during the recession. The first cat cafe reportedly opened in Taipei in 1998. This is the earliest one that I could find. Please let me know if you know of any that are opened earlier than that. And quickly after these cat cafes took off all over the world, mostly in Asia, they started bringing in more exotic and wild animals into their cafes, which is where we start to get a little sticky. So Tokyo's first owl Cafe opened in 2012, and was quickly followed by other bird cafes with parrots and hawks. A study in 2020 identified 406 Animal cafes across Asia, so they kind of exploded between 1998 and 2020. 27% Of these housed exotic species, including various mammals such as otters, slow lorises, and meerkats, birds such as hawks, owls, parrots, and reptiles such as geckos, pythons and turtles. of the 252 exotic species recorded 46% were threatened either by decreasing populations, or by the pet trade, or both. So many of these exotic species, many of these wildlife species that are being put into these cafes are considered threatened or endangered in these areas, which is really, really interesting to know. So let's also talk about the differences between domestic, wild, and exotic animals because I'm going to be using those terms a lot in this episode. So the way a wild and a domestic animal is defined can vary due to generic, legal, biological, and cultural viewpoints. So I'm going to be kind of talking about a mix of all of them. Domestic Animals are animals that have been selectively bred and genetically adapted over generations to live alongside humans, that is very important, genetically adapted over generations. So you need multiple, multiple multiple generations of these animals for them to be considered domestic. And this can take hundreds to 1000s of years often. these animals are genetically distinct from their wild ancestors or cousins. So they typically do not have any, any wild of these animals, like these animals are not typically wild outside of their domesticity. They could have cousins such as dogs are related to wolves, but they are not, you know, like they're not the same. They're not genetically the same any longer. Often, domestic animals cannot survive without the help of humans. So I say often because you get cases like feral cat colonies. And so cats are a domestic animal, we have bred them, like, you know, house cats, domestic Shorthairs, whatever, we have bred them, they are domesticated, but they are often able to survive without humans, you know, you see feral cats living outside and would rather live outside than be with people. But most of the time you think of dogs you think of, you know, dairy cows and pigs and things like that they cannot really survive without without people to house them and feed them and take care of them. So there are three groupings legally to for domestic animals. There are animals for companionship, such as dogs and cats, food animals, such as cows, sheep, pigs, and turkeys, and then working or draft animals such as horses, donkeys and camels. And then you do get kind of an overlap with animals such as rabbits who can be considered the food or companionship, you know, people have find companionship with cows and sheep all the time. You know, those lines get a little blurry, but they are all domestic. A select few animals involved in domesticated breeding programs are considered eligible for the domesticated label, such as foxes, wolves and elephants. So there are a few animals that have been bred over generations, like long enough to be, you know, on the cusp of considered domesticated. So we have breeders who are domesticating foxes, there are breeders, domesticating wolves and Asian elephants. However, they are still kind of on that line between it's a little blurry. So it really depends on who you ask, you know, you're gonna ask three scientists, they're gonna have six different opinions on on this matter, but, so animals like that are currently being bred. They're like in the midst of becoming domesticated. But personally, I would not really consider them domesticated yet. So wild animals naturally live independently of humans in their own wild habitats. Wild animals can be tamed and trained, but have not been genetically and selectively bred and adapted. That is very important. So we can and we do, train and tame wild animals frequently, in both good and bad ways. You think about, you know, the bad way such as with circuses, you think of bad ways with like, elephant riding and things like that those animals have been trained and tamed. But then you also think about zoo animals who have been trained to you know, hi, Loki, he's chatting to me, he's hungry thinks it's dinner time. These animals who have been trained to maybe rollover for command so that a veterinarian can examine them without having to sedate them, or an animal who has been trained to do you know, various things. Usually, in zoos, it's for the benefit of the animals so that a veterinarian or their keepers can check on them do a full body check without having to sedate them, which can cause a lot of health problems. Exotic animals are a little more difficult to define. So we're gonna get into kind of the nitty gritty of it. Title Nine of the Code of Federal Regulations in the United States, which focuses on animals and animal products. Lists, quote, unquote, animal as dog, cat, non human primate guinea pig, Hamster, rabbit or any other warm blooded animals used for research, testing, teaching, experimentation exhibits or as a pet. It also defines farm animals separately, and any other animal is considered exotic. But there's, you know, a lot of loopholes in this, you know, coming from the veterinary world, an exotic pet and exotic animal is any pet that is not a dog, cat, horse or farm animal. So this includes the more common quote unquote exotic animals such as rabbits and guinea pigs. This also includes various snakes, various mammals such as, you know, hedgehogs, sugar gliders, things like that. To me, personally, I kind of go with the veterinary standpoint, anything that is not a dog, cat, horse or farm animal, but it also has to have been selectively bred over various generations. So we are getting into that more domestic side. people do breed snakes, people have been breeding hedgehogs, or that at least African pygmy hedgehogs for quite a while. So those would be considered domestic but they would also be considered exotic. There is no like distinct line when an animal goes from being a wild animal to an exotic pet, but typically, they do need time and breeding to become an exotic pet. Once they kind of crossed that line where they wouldn't necessarily be able to survive in the wild is when they're kind of more considered an exotic pet rather than a wild animal that somebody's keeping in their house. But they're we're not quite at the same length of time as domestic animal you think about how long we've been breeding dogs, how long we've been breeding various cats, and dairy cows and horses, it's been hundreds of years. So I would say that the majority of these like newer pets these quote unquote, exotic pets are on that line of being domestic because they can't really survive without us. They have been bred over generations, but they're not nearly on that same length of time or on that same level as like, you know a dog So currently there is a bit of a problem with a rising demand for exotic pets. And studies show I've read multiple studies that show more young people. So people, you know, ages 40, 30 or younger, are interested in wildlife, and owning exotic pets. So those two things a lot of the times go together, you meet somebody who's really passionate about wildlife, they may have a pet snake, they may have a pet rabbit, they may have a hedgehog, whatever. Exotic Animal cafe's may continue to fuel the desire to buy more exotic animals. But they're not the only thing. The studies have also shown that, you know, social media has been probably the biggest factor in the rising demand of wanting people wanting exotic pets, you see really adorable memes and videos and pictures of foxes and hedgehogs and rabbits and snakes in little knitted hats and everything on on your Instagram feed. And you instantly fall in love with them and you want them and I am guilty of that as well. These can be done ethically with exotic pet breeders. So if you find a really good breeder, I'm typically against breeders for you know animals like dogs and cats where we have plenty of them. But for certain exotic animals, where there's not an overabundance of them in like shelters and things, if you find a really good breeder who treats their animals really well who makes sure that they cycle out. So they're not in breeding their animals or overbreeding their animals. That is totally fine, at least to me personally, for exotic pets, especially. But this also fuels the exotic animal trade. So you know, especially with reptiles, so it's a little more difficult with some mammals. Because, you know, African pygmy hedgehogs, for example, look very different than their, like wild counterparts that you'll see in Europe or Madagascar, Africa. And will continue to look different, the longer that we breed them. But for birds and reptiles, we have run into I say we as in a whole have run into the problem where people are like poachers are grabbing birds, and especially parrots and certain reptile species from the wild and then selling them claiming that they had been bred when in fact, they had been poached. So you just want to be extremely careful if you are going about wanting to adopt or purchase an exotic animal to take care of. You want to make sure that you are getting it from a notable breeder who can actually give you papers. That's a really important thing. This can distruct habitat and decimate populations of potentially threatened or endangered animals if if you end up accidentally getting them from poachers. The illegal wildlife pet trade is especially bad in Asia where the majority of these cafes are located. So yeah, I think that you know it is what it is we they we just need more education over there on proper breeding, ethical breeding of these of these exotic pets and you know, putting a stop to the the illegal wildlife pet trade. Some exotic animals are bred to be pets and make excellent ones as long as they are taken care of properly. So for example, while I was working in the veterinary field, I did work for it and I don't know if you can hear him Loki has the zoomies right now and it's just like yeeting himself back and forth, down the hallway waiting for me to be done so we can go snuggle on the couch, but he is my pride and joy. Anyway, so most exotic pet problems I have seen working with veterinarians come down to bad husbandry such as the wrong habitat, enclosure, the wrong food, the wrong like heating lamps if you have a reptile, things like that, just not knowing how to properly take care of these animals. Personally, I have owned rabbits, hedgehogs, snakes and gerbils. They're all considered exotic animals. They're all considered exotic pets. But you do as much research as you can you find out the best possible way to take care of these animals and they can live a very long time. You can make each other very happy, you can properly take care of them, and it's great. Okay, so I'm going to take a quick break, maybe try to get Loki had to calm down a little bit. And then we will talk about some of the personal experiences that I asked some of you guys and the lovely Martha and Sarah sent me theirs. And then also, I went to YouTube and found a ton of videos that I just kind of watched and use my experience in animal behavior and animal behavioral studies, to kind of gauge how these animals are being taken care of. And some of these videos were great, some of them were not so great, I am not going to name videos of, you know, YouTubers or travelers who went to unethical places or did the wrong thing. This is not this podcast is not about calling people out this podcast is about education and learning from each other. And so that we can learn from each other's mistakes and just do better. So I will never shame anybody for making these mistakes. As long as they didn't realize that they were making that mistake when they made it if that makes sense. So I will be back right after this. When you travel, you should be protected, especially if you enjoy adventurous activities or wildlife tourism. That's where travel insurance comes in. I personally use world nomads because their coverage makes the most sense for me. They cover injuries or illnesses, lost luggage, canceled flights, and even damaged electronics. Protect yourself and your trip with World nomads travel insurance. Check if their coverage is right for you using the link in the description. As a frequent traveler the number one question I get from others is how I managed to find affordable flights around the world. My answer Skyscanner, Skyscanner searches through multiple airlines to find you the best deal, but what makes it different from other platforms. If you're flexible on your days, you have the option to select cheapest one to truly find the most affordable flight. fixed dates but flexible on your destination. Select everywhere and find the most affordable destinations for your time. My favorite way to find affordable flights is by selecting both cheapest month and everywhere. That way I could find some incredibly affordable flights from my home airport and discover some new destinations I never thought I would explore. Start planning your next vacation for free with Skyscanner using the link in the description. Thanks again so much for listening to those and for clicking on those links and using these services and products that I am endorsing your support really, really matters to me and just thank you so much for listening to those. Okay, so let's talk about these various, you know, cafes and everything. These are coming from people sending me their experiences, watching YouTube videos of people experiencing them for themselves and also some research that I did when using scholarly articles and others in pure Imperial Imperial empirical research. So okay, so the first personal experience I'm going to, I'm going to talk about is Martha at may cause wonder less. Thank you, Martha. She visited Oh, I'm going to butcher this. Cada CAFO who CO in Reykjavik, Iceland. This is a cat cafe that adopts rescue cats out. It had. She said it had clear rules in place and did not run like a petting zoo. And they had vegan cakes and drinks. So that's kind of what I always picture what I hear an animal Cafe is an actual cafe with like coffee and maybe some pastries and tea. And you know, just some animals around like almost like my living room and I'm sitting there and I have my pets and my just chillin hanging out with them. They're hanging out with me and I'm having a good cup of coffee. However, I did notice some very different experiences while watching the abundance of YouTube videos of others visiting cafes. So here are some of the things that I noticed. So for a hedgehog cafe that I saw, and once again, I am going to give a shout out to the channels that I thought did a really great job explaining things pointing out things that you know, could be better at trying their best to educate their followers and their and their subscribers and everything. So Christina and romaine on YouTube they visited both a hedgehog and a rabbit cafe. And I thought that they did an excellent job, you know, just talking about it and showing both the good and the bad. So the hedgehog cafe had really great rules set in place to ensure safe handling of the hedgehogs. Because hedgehogs are very delicate, and I have owned them in the past. They're my favorite animal, I love them so much, but they can be a little grumpy, they can be a little feisty, and they can, you know, puff up their spikes and kind of jump and scare you if you're not ready for it. However, the hedgehogs being handled were being woken up during the day. So you could go down and sit and pick out a hedgehog you wanted to handle and pick them up. They're asleep whenever they were picking them up, which isn't great. Hedgehogs are nocturnal, so it's not great that they're being picked up and handled during the day. However, they are one of those exotic pets that are kind of more on the domestic side. So these hedgehogs were very used to being handled, you could tell they were I have handled some very grumpy very oh, what's the word very unsocialized hedgehogs before and these weren't it, these hedgehogs were used to people they liked people they liked to be handled. So that was good and bad. There were kids in the cafe I noticed very young kids. And you know, this is fine, as long as they're, you know, staying quiet. Hedgehogs have very sensitive ears. I'm not handling them, inappropriately all of that. But from what I saw in the video, the kids were just kind of watching rather than being the ones directly handling the hedgehogs, which is good, which is really good. The cages that they had the hedgehogs in were a bit overcrowded, and they were kind of the wrong cages and environment. So they didn't have like hedgehogs really need a running wheel hedgehogs need places to burrow. They're more solitary animals, so they don't really like to live in groups. And this could be fine, as long as they get put into other enclosures at night when they are more active so they can run on their wheels so they can do you know all those behaviors that that a healthy hedgehog will do. But it wasn't shown whether or not and they didn't talk about whether or not these hedgehogs were put into different enclosures at night, or if they stayed in these kind of overcrowded environments. The hedgehogs were adoptable which is awesome. However, well, it's awesome as long as they are providing the right education for the people who want to who are wanting to adopt them. Because hedgehogs like most exotic pets do require very specialized care, very specialized husbandry requirements. And they can be incredible pets. I loved both of my hedgehogs that I've had, and I loved them so much. But you know, they won't live very long and they won't live a very happy life either, if they are not being properly taken care of. So at this particular cafe, there were only seven people allowed in the cafe at a time to prevent over handling and loud noises, which is really awesome. And there were quite a few hedgehogs in there. So only allowing seven people in there at once would be really great in preventing that over handling. So that one was really great. Um, hedgehogs are kind of one of those on the fence ones for me, because they are, you know, a pet they are these were African pygmy hedgehogs they, they are more on the domestic side and are considered an exotic pet. So as long as they're being taken care of properly, I really have no issues with hedgehog cafes. You just have to know how to take care of them. So Christina and Romain also visited a rabbit cafe. This one was very small. And it seemed very overcrowded. The rabbits were in very, very small cages. The cages themselves were very overcrowded. There were like two small rabbits to a very small rabbit cage. And which is really not great. Rabbits need a lot of space to run around a lot of space to like the rabbit cages that you see being sold in pet stores and things. They're not the right environment for a rabbit to live in. Maybe at night, kind of like a like a you might create your dog at night just for sleep. But it seemed to be that these rabbits were in these cages all the time, which is really really really bad. Some rabbits were not able to be handled because they were on a break. So if they had have recently been handled, they were, there was like a little sign put up on their cage saying that they were, you know, on a break, and they didn't want to over handle them, which is good. However, these rabbits were only able to be handled for 15 minutes at a time. And if that's all these rabbits, if that's all the time these rabbits got to run around, because they, when they were being handled, they would they were taken out and kind of put it in this really big playpen area, which is really great. That's actually the proper like enclosure for them all the time so that they have toys and space to run around and explore. And, but if they only got about 15 minutes of this at a time, maybe even just once per day, that is not enough time. There were strict rules set in place for proper handling, which is good. The rabbits also seemed very at ease and very comfortable with people, which is also very good. They didn't really show any signs of aggression, no obvious signs of anxiety. However, there was one sick rabbit that was still in a small cage and was around all the other rabbits that was not shown on camera. But Christina and romaine talked about after they're after they had left. And that's really bad. So we want to make sure that the animals in the cafes are once again being properly taken care of getting regular veterinary care, all that good stuff. And these rabbits were not adoptable. So they spent their entire lives in this cafe, which is not ideal either. So just like with the hedgehogs, I'm not opposed to rabbit cafes, it's there are a ton of rabbits that need homes. They're one of those animals just like dogs and cats who, you know, people buy them realize that they're more work than they realized. And then they get dumped at shelters. So I think a rabbit cafe with rescued rabbits and adoptable rabbits with good education for visitors is an excellent idea. This just was not one of them. So now we're getting more into the wild animal cafes, which I have a big issue with none of these seemed ethical, none of them seemed great. Once again, not going to shout out or accuse any of these cafes or people that visited them who were doing the wrong thing. So some of the rat, I saw two different raccoon, Raccoon cafes, they all did have strict rules in place, but in one of them workers did not follow them. So the rules said like no picking up the raccoons, don't let them climb you, et cetera, et cetera. But one of the workers came over and place like picked up a raccoon and then placed the raccoon on this YouTuber's shoulder. And he was able to kind of like pose with it and talk with him like while it was climbing on his shoulders and on his head, which I really really didn't like. In one of these places. There were two raccoons, a dog and a small capybara, all in the cafe. None of them, including the dogs seemed very well taken care of. The cafe itself was very brightly lit and very loud, which raccoons are nocturnal. They should not be in that kind of environment. And all of the raccoons there were showing anxious behaviors such as wanting to escape. They were, you know, crawling up and down the walls like frantically scratching at the windows trying to run away from people. And it just made me sad watching it. They also showed some aggressive behaviors both towards each other and to the people. And most of them were also very overweight, which is also very bad. Guests were allowed to bother the raccoons while they were sleeping as well. So the raccoons would try to climb up to a high place to get some rest away from people and the people visiting were allowed to just go right up to him and bother them so not great. I did watch an interview with Formosa TV, English News on YouTube. And they showed in a different a different Cafe than what I just talked about. raccoons in extremely small cages with tight collars and chains. All the animals showed signs of anxiety, such as attempts to escape and aggression. The news report showed a dog attacking one of the raccoons and some abhorred treatments such as you know, trigger warning for you guys beating some of the raccoons with a with a baseball bat. Withholding food chaining them like very very, very tight chains. It was awful. Also on the Formosa TV, English news, they interviewed Multiple veterinarians and multiple, like animal experts, and they all said that interacting with so many strangers every day puts excessive stress on most animals, both domestic and wild. This stress can cause physiological and psychological harm long term. And they list distress signs such as pacing, tongue flicking, rocking or swinging back and forth hair loss from over grooming or plucking. But these signs can vary species to species. So that is something to keep an eye out if you ever go to visit any of these cafes. If you notice any of the animals acting in this way, be sure to let somebody know if you know the people working there don't seem concerned about it, it's probably not a great place to be. Finally, we get to the meerkats, which is another like really, really big one that's kind of come up recently. One of them they all seem very comfortable with people and were fine being handled. But meerkats are not domestically bred and are therefore wild. I couldn't find online any like meerkat breeders, like you would be able to find a specific species of snake breeder or hedgehog breeder or like a pot bellied pig breeder. I just really couldn't find any and I could be wrong. If I am, please reach out and let me know. But I couldn't find any like breeding programs outside of like, zoo breeding programs for meerkats. They are extremely easily trained and teamed. However, they are still considered wild animals. So I personally am not comfortable with them being in like a cafe setting. They may be okay in like a zoo Cafe setting if a zoo with experienced trainers and keepers wanted to have this kind of Cafe experience, where you know, they do it for just a little bit and then go back into their more wild areas because they a lot of meerkats are very comfortable interacting with people which is totally fine. But they should be able to exhibit those wild behaviors and everything away from people. As long as you know they are wild and not being domestically bred. So Sarah from Sarah sojourns also visited a Meerkat cafe, she said that, while she was there, there were very strict rules and limited time, which is awesome. She noted that all of the animals were, they seemed well taken care of they seemed very happy. They didn't seem anxious at all. And she said there were other animals there that were on rotation to keep one group from getting like too stressed out. So if you're going to have like a meerkat cafe, this is the way to do it. But without, you know, zookeepers and the proper trainers and wildlife experts, I'm not really comfortable with having a wild animal cafe in this sense, but the one that Sarah visited seemed to be, you know, the best option if you are going to do that. Finally, I watched this last person I watched on YouTube, she visited multiple different cafes. One of them was a meerkat, Fox, and Wallaby Cafe, which a wallaby is kind of a small kangaroo. They were all in the same cafe, which is why I was kind of iffy about the cafe itself was very clean and seeing all the animals seem to be well taken care of. And animals had their own large spaces, similar to zoos that I visited. So this one like you know, they're doing their best there as well. I have been you know, I've worked at a zoo before and in the back like not in where they're on exhibit. It did look a lot like that where these animals were very spread out they had their own big spaces with lots of enrichment to you know, keep them happy and healthy. But you have to remember this is not a zoo. This is a you know, cafe. I watched multiple videos on owl cafes, and I was very uncomfortable with like all of them. Owls are notoriously difficult to keep in captivity even in zoos. Many of the visitors were allowed to pet and play with the owls. Some of them are chained and shackled with on by their feet and not allowed to fly. Some of them. The Owls are allowed to fly freely and perch away from guests if they wanted to. But really owls don't like to be around people they're very hard to keep in captivity and And I would just say flat out don't go to an owl Cafe is just not, it's not good. I did watch some videos on some that were like farm animals, which I thought were very interesting. Um, there was one that was had lots of sheep. And the sheep were really cool. They, they were very comfortable. The guests were able to like feed them hay, which is their proper diet, which is awesome. The sheep are clean, and they the all the guests had to wash their hands before interacting with them, which was awesome. And I would put the sheep on the same level as like dogs and cats. They're, you know, domesticated over hundreds of years. And they're very relaxed and comfortable around people. As long as they're being taken care of. It's awesome. And then finally dog and cat cafes. I've even been to one there's a cat cafe in Seattle where I live and all of the cats are up for adoption, they are all rescues, which seems to be kind of the majority for dog and cat cafes where often they are usually like part shelter and Part Cafe. I've even seen like a dog bar, where instead of it being a cafe, it's a bar and then they had dogs running around and you could all the dogs were up for adoption, which would be extremely dangerous for me to be walking out with like seven dogs. But these seem to be much more ethical in treatment. The dogs all for it to be a shelter, especially in the United States, they do need to have access to veterinary care legally. And from all accounts I've received and videos that I've seen the dog and cat cafes are, they do offer the animals like more places to hide and get away from people when they're no longer wanting attention. They are they're just very much better taken care of. So let's talk about some actual benefits of animal cafes. Because there are some. animal cafes are a great way to find homes for adoptable domestic pets, so I am fully for an animal cafe that had you know adoptable cats adoptable dogs, even some exotic pets like hedgehogs and snakes and rabbits and guinea pigs and all that kind of stuff. So I actually I would be super interested in opening my own and with with exotic pets because there aren't as many shelters that take them. So I am fully on board for that as long as the animals are being well taken care of. There is the potential to teach others about proper animal husbandry, and how to properly take care of these animals. It does reduce stress and anxiety in visitors I have seen multiple studies that stress and anxiety was dramatically lowered in people who are visiting these cafes. So they're a really great like tool for yourself for your own self care. And they do also encourage conservation efforts and help raise money. These I feel would be great in like a zoo setting for animals who are really well trained and and enjoy being around people. And, you know, as a as a kind of a fundraiser, but in general, wild animals don't belong in cafes, kind of period. So here are some of the problems with animal cafes. Wild or exotic animals are often kept in small cages with a staff that does not know how to properly take care of them, even if they are well intentioned. So even like you can tell in a lot of these videos that the workers there really care about the animals in there, but they just don't know how to to, to take care of them. And whether you're well intentioned or not. If you're not properly taking care of the animal that animal is going to suffer. In the worst of these places, the animals are often forced to perform tricks for paying guests as well. Many animals carry salmonella, which is a very bad mix with food and drink. So Salmonella is a bacterial infection that is spread through animal poop. And you may have heard heard it like you know you'll get salmonella from eating raw eggs or whatever. It actually comes from the egg shell because it has been in contact with poop, especially eggs that you would get directly from a farm rather than a grocery store. So any animal that walks through its poop and then you hold it can transmit salmonella that includes dogs and cats. That includes hedgehogs. They love to run through their poop. That includes snakes and lizards that are you know All of it, all of these animals are more than capable of spreading salmonella. So if you are interacting with these animals and eating and drinking while you're doing it without sanitizing your hands before, oops, that can be really bad. So that is just something to think about before going to these. There are also other potential zoonotic diseases that can be spread due to close quarters and lack of veterinary care. So there are a plethora of diseases that we can catch and spread to, to and from various animals depending on the animal. So that's also something to really think about. in these animal cafes, because they're not specifically a zoo, and they're not specifically a shelter, there's little to no regulation for the animals health or welfare in these places. So a lot of countries such as Taiwan, Thailand, and you know, other Asian countries, including the US are trying to put forth more laws and regulations for these establishments because they do know that abuse and neglect is kind of rampant in them. And most wild animals are nocturnal, or crepuscular and crepuscular, I'm sure most of you know what nocturnal means, it means that they're mostly active at night. crepuscular means that they are mostly active at dawn and dusk. And animals such as rabbits, and are most active at like right when the sun is setting and right when the sun is rising, and then they sleep during the day and at night. So these animals there that are being forced to be awake and active during the day can really, really, really mess them up, you know, it's a lack of sleep or forced lack of sleep on people is considered a form of torture. So just throwing that out there. And this also increases animal poaching throughout Asia to open these cafes, especially the wild animal cafes. So studies have shown a direct relation between exotic and wild animal cafes and poaching within these countries, so that's also something that, you know, if there's no domestic breeding programs for these animals, then they are being pulled from the wild, they are being poached from the wild. So really quickly, I do want to share singers principle of equal consideration of interests. So I had never actually heard of this, despite studying bio psychology and animal behavior. And like animal ethics, like a science based animal ethics, throughout college, I either I hadn't heard of this, or I just completely forgot about it, which is there. They're both big possibilities, and quite honestly. But this kind of philosophical approach was created by Peter Singer, who is an animal rights, bio ethicist in 1974. And he says, quote, humans should not be exclusively valued just because they belong to a species, rather, they should receive deference based on their interests or their abilities to suffer end quote. So this kind of means that animals that have interests and the ability to suffer, their interests and welfare must be taking seriously as well. So this principle is based on speciesism the way how the way humans, you know, put themselves first in general, because of us as a species, and this originally began as an argument against racism, sexism, and homophobia, back when and I'm sure you know, people still think of this think this way now, but back in 1974, you know, people thought themselves as different or better or above people who had a different skin color or different sex or different gender, different sexual orientation, whatever. And then it turned to an argument to to support intelligent non human animals. Others argue that non human animals do not have the same autonomy as humans, rationality, intelligence, morals etc, and therefore do not require equal consideration. However, Peter Singer argues, quote, sometimes animals may suffer more because of their more limited understanding. If for instance, we are taking prisoners in wartime, we can explain to them that while they must submit to capture, search and confinement, they will not otherwise be harmed, and will be set free at the conclusion of hostilities. If we capture a wild animal, however, we cannot explain that we are not threatening its life. A wild animal cannot distinguish an attempt to overpower and confine from an attempt to kill the one causes as much terror as the other therefore, we are in quote sorry. Therefore we should be treating non human animals with at least some level of respect for their interests, ie their well being and want to be free from suffering. So there's no way that those owls being chained in a cafe, those otters being, you know, otters and meerkats being in an environment they're not they're not used to be to being in and being handled by people. There's no way that these animals aren't suffering on some level, even if we can't recognize it immediately. Some animals are much easier to care for than others in captivity. So I've had pet snakes, my husband has had pet snakes. But we've only had a very few species number species, because there are some species of snakes that you put them in captivity, and they stop eating. For different species of mammals, you try to put them in captivity, they'll stop eating, they won't breed, they won't, they won't do the same biological behaviors that they would do in the wild in order for them to survive. So that is something that we need to consider when talking about these things. So in conclusion, my personal opinion so this does not reflect any of the people I mentioned in this episode. Any of the videos that I watched any of the people I interviewed, animal cafes started with good intentions, but quickly grew out of control. Wild and exotic animals needs specialized care in the proper environment to be healthy. Some animal cafes can provide exotic pet animals, the proper environment, but not all of them. And I personally do not think that any cafe can provide the proper environment for wild animals for them to be happy and healthy. Animal cafes with the intent on animal adoption, as long as they are cared for properly are fantastic. Love them, want more of them. They're awesome. These could be a great addition or fundraising options for zoos with staff that know how to adequately care for the animals. So animal ambassadors who are well trained and tamed and like to be around people. Maybe you can sit and have a cup of coffee with a meerkat as long as their trainer and their zookeeper is nearby and then they get to go right back to their habitat afterwards. I don't really see a problem with that. Other people may and that's certainly up for debate and we won't have any studies on how this affects the individual animals until we try it. But they they do not belong in cafes. Alright everybody. Thank you so much for listening today. Remember, next week I will have a special guest on as we talk about swimming with dolphins with wild dolphins and dolphins in captivity. And we will be discussing kind of the pros and cons about that. And it'll be really fun. So give me a follow Facebook, Twitter, Instagram all at stumble Safari. And keep your eyes peeled because I will consider I will.... I will continue to put out polls on episodes. You know you guys can vote on which episode you'd like me to do next asking for people to give me their opinions if they if they have visited these types of places or if there are or if you work with animals. I'd love to hear from you. So be sure to follow me on Instagram. I will be posting pictures from today's episode and yeah, I'll see you guys next week bye. Sources for today's episode can be found in the link in the description. Thank you for listening