When to click away from an animal video
–Any wild animal in a house/being treated like a pet. Yes, even if they say they “rescued” it. No legitimate rehabber would EVER treat a wild animal like a pet. Repeat after me: it does not matter if the animal is not suitable for release; they still shouldn’t be kept as a pet.
–Free contact with big cats. Even if it’s a “sanctuary”.
–People interacting with wildlife. Feeding, petting, playing with, etc.
–Free handling venomous snakes.
–Predator and prey interacting. Cats and birds, dogs and birds, literally anything else with birds. Cats or dogs with rodents, etc.
–Any video that claims a wild animal is domesticated. Wild animals are NOT domesticated, but they can be tamed. These are two very different things and anyone who doesn’t understand the difference shouldn’t be owning one of those animals.
–Any video claiming that (insert wild/exotic species here) is “just like owning a dog/cat!” i.e. the video that went around saying foxes are “the best characteristics of cats and dogs”.
–Facilities that breed hybrids or morphs (i.e. ligers, white tigers, coywolves, etc)
–Obese animals being portrayed as “cute and chonky”.
–Click bait titles about dangerous/exotic animals i.e. “bitten by my king cobra!”, “my pet fox did what?!?”, “letting my pet alligator pick out a toy!”. You get the idea. Anyone using wild animals to get views/publicity does not have their best interests at heart.
–Any “dog trainers” promoting dominance theory (this shit has been disproven so many times and is not even accurate for wolves…)
–Owl cafes, otter cafes, or any kind of wild animal cafe.
Seriously, don’t give these people views. I understand that it can be hard to distinguish good and bad animal videos, but try and be critical of what you’re consuming. Giving these people views gets them sponsorships and money. Plus, more views = increased circulation of the video. This is honestly especially important on TikTok because there are so many younger people on that app. Look at the comment section on any pet wildlife video and it’s “omg I want one!”, “where can I get one?” over and over. And yes, this does matter. It has been proven that the media we consume does influence people to get these as pets. It is currently baby animal season in the US and my clinic is inundated with people who “rescued” baby wildlife (aka nest-napped) and now want to keep them as a pet. Mostly raccoons but also squirrels, opossums, ducklings, wild birds, and pretty much everything you can imagine.
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