"The zoo gets a lot of calls from people who have these animals and find they can't handle them anymore, so they call to see if we can take them, and we can't," said Valeri Boyce, public relations director for the Norristown zoo.
Because the zoo has all the skunks, foxes and prairie dogs it needs, such unwanted pets often are literally left out in the cold.
"It's so unfair to the animal to put them in a situation where they don't learn how to take care of themselves," Boyce said. "It's funny. People think they aren't wild animals when you want them to sleep on the end of your bed. But when you don't want them, then it's like, 'They can just go. They know what to do.' "
The problem is that the animals, at that point, usually do not know what to do, said zoo director Stephen P. Jagielski. Many starve or are injured when turned out into the woods.
The best way to keep the animals from harm, Boyce and Jagielski said, is to not take them out of their natural environment in the first place.
That is the main thrust of the educational campaign Boyce is organizing. In addition to having lectures and programs at the zoo, she said, she would circulate petitions and ask local pet stores for support.
Maureen Glass, owner of Spencer's Wide World of Pets in Frazer, sells some snakes and birds along with the more traditional fare, but she said she would not sell anything to someone who does not want to commit to caring for and learning about the animal.
"I think people want them (wild animals) because they think they'll be fun," Glass said. "But then they get tired of them. People only think of what they can have fun with and not the long-term effect."
Dolores Dunlap, who owns Pet-A-Pet Shop in Upper Providence with her husband, Bob, said she often gets calls from people who want to buy a wild animal. She always tries to dissuade them, she said: "We try to tell people what they are getting into."
