王吉娜實習日誌10: 寵物展

寵物展

 

    幾天前，我們獲悉要去參觀一個寵物展。由於從未參加過此類活動，我起初並不確定會看到什麼，但抵達現場後，其宏大的規模令我大為驚訝。在參觀過程中，我注意到這裡有著濃厚的“養狗文化”，這與我家鄉的情況截然不同——老實說，我的朋友們幾乎都養貓，所以我已經很久沒有和朋友的狗互動過了。

    出發前，我們被特別叮嚀要留意可能的動物忽略或虐待現象，因為這類商業展會上往往容易出現此類問題。我拍了一些看起來可疑的場景，其中大部分涉及異國動物（珍奇寵物）的展示，這讓我感到相當震驚。也許在美國，有些動物被視為普通寵物，而在其他國家卻被歸類為異國珍奇動物；但我從未見過有人把狐獴當作寵物出售。我們看到一家名為 Mazuri 的公司在出售狐獴，標價約為 25,000 到 35,000 新台幣；那隻狐獴孤零零地待著，看起來非常焦慮。

    眾所周知，狐獴是高度群居的動物，人工飼養時必須成對或成群，否則可能會損害它們的心理健康。專家也指出，應以小群體的形式飼養狐獴，以模擬它們在自然界中的社會等級和行為模式。此外，還有一個看起來極小的龍貓籠，裡面的龍貓都非常安靜或在睡覺，全都縮在角落。相較之下，Mazuri 展出的另一個龍貓籠空間寬敞（足有幾平方英尺），裡面的三隻龍貓精力充沛地四處奔跑，這種反差讓我感觸頗深。另一個讓我覺得可疑的是一種供貓狗使用的“智能籠”，旨在供主人外出工作時使用。這種籠子看起來很小，一想到要把動物獨自關在裡面好幾個小時，讓它們無法自由活動，我就覺得這並不是什麼好事。

Pet Exhibition

    A few days before, we were told to get tickets to a pet exhibition. I wasn’t sure what to expect because I’ve never been to one, but when I got there today I was surprised to see how huge the event was. During my time here though, I did notice that there seemed to be a pretty big culture surrounding dogs, which back home I hadn’t seen much of. To be honest, nearly all of my friends own cats, and so I haven’t interacted with a friend’s dog in a really long time. 

    But beforehand we were told to also look out for any animal neglect or abuses that could be going on, just because that tends to happen in commercial spaces like these. I took a few pictures and videos of things that seemed suspicious, but most were from exotic animal exhibitions which I was shocked to see. Maybe the United States has other animals as pets that other countries consider exotic, but I had never seen a meerkat being sold as a pet. We saw one with the company called Mazuri, being sold for about $25,000 to $35,000 NTD, but it was also alone and looked highly anxious. 

    Apparently, because meerkats are highly sociable creatures, they need to be domestically raised in pairs or it might cause harm to the meerkats mental state. Experts would also argue that meerkats need to be raised in small groups in order to mimic their natural social hierarchies and behaviors. There was also a chinchilla cage that looked really small, and the chinchillas in there were very quiet or sleeping, all of them tucked away in corners. Comparing this to another exhibit there by Mazuri where the cage was actually several square feet spacious, and the three chinchillas were energetically running around, this felt like a major difference to me. Another thing that looked suspicious to me were the smart cages for cats and dogs while the owner was away from work. It looked pretty small, and the thought of leaving an animal in there for several hours, alone, without being able to move a lot, did not seem good to me.