We’d all love to own a cute film animal, wouldn’t we? A rat that sits on your shoulder and helps you make the dinner, perhaps. Or a Mutant Ninja Turtle to eat pizza with. Or a ginger tabby, like Street Cat Bob, who makes his film debut in November, and raises a paw to do clever high-fives. Who wouldn’t want these guys as pets? It’s the stuff every kid’s dreams are made of.
And thanks to Pixar’s “Finding Dory,” you can bet that parents everywhere will find themselves pestered to come up with the goods, in the form of a photogenic blue tang.
Unfortunately, the reality is a lot less appealing than the winsome character voiced by Ellen DeGeneres. And it could be an environmental disaster waiting to happen.
There have been plenty of cute critter film heroes, from Bambi to Babe. But clownfish are the first species in the animal kingdom to drastically suffer from their silver screen fame. Back in 2003, “Finding Nemo” created a demand for the small orange and white stripey fish that has almost taken the species towards extinction. More than 1 million clownfish are illegally harvested from the Great Barrier Reef every year, with 90 percent of the clownfish being supplied from the wild.
Karen Burke Da Silva, a marine biologist at Flinders University in southwest Australia, was so concerned that a decade ago she and a group of colleagues founded Saving Nemo, a project that aims to solve the problem by breeding clownfish in captivity and supplying them to aquariums.
“There was a dramatic increase in demand after the movie, and there continues to be a large interest in clownfish as pets and in the marine aquarium trade in general,” she said. “The industry is huge, with millions of dollars being spent and millions of fish being taken from the wild.”The impact that “Finding Nemo” had on the wild clownfish population has been devastating, but at least they can exist comfortably in a tank, if they survive the leap from the reef to your house. The blue tang is a different kettle of fish.
“I am particularly concerned about the future of the blue tang,” Da Silva said. “If the craze takes off, then we have a real problem, since 100 percent of them are being taken from the reef and this species could be in real trouble if illegal fishing practices persist.”
Approximately 300,000 wild blue tang were being traded globally in preparation for demand due to “Finding Dory.” But buying one could be a painful mistake.
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“If these fish are taken into captivity, they don’t make great pets,” said Da Silva. “They have a toxic spine that can deliver a big sting, and they grow too big for most home aquaria.”
You would need at least a 75-gallon tank if you wanted to house your own Dory as they grow up to a foot long. Not so cute now, is she?
Of course, pet crazes are nothing new. Simon Drew, a scientist in geography at Newcastle University in England, recalls the misadventure that followed his brother’s insistence on getting terrapins after seeing the original Mutant Ninja Turtles film in the late 1980s, when they were readily available in pet shops but with little information on their care.
“Mum was left to feed them and clean them out when their tank began to smell like old wee,” he recalls. “One day we came back from school to find she had released them into a pool in a local park.”
Sharon Comrie, a superintendent with the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said: “I remember the effect the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film had on our rehoming centres in 1990. There was a noticeable rise in numbers of terrapins coming into our care after the first film. People are often fooled into thinking they are easy to look after and don’t fully consider the time and commitment required to care for them. There can also be a boredom factor because owners can’t take them for a walk or cuddle and play with them. They can live for up to 60 years, so the decision to take one on shouldn’t be made lightly.”
According to a 2014 study by the University of Bristol and the City University of New York, we’re a bit more loyal to our furry friends. The fashion for certain breeds of dog can last up to 10 years after a film comes out. Figures from the Kennel Club of Great Britain chart Dalmatian ownership from 906 dogs in 1961, when Disney’s 101 Dalmatians was first released, to 3,000 by the end of that decade. Far from dropping off, it remained steady until peaking in 1996 after the release of the live action remake.
So what does this mean for Street Cat Bob, who makes his screen debut this winter? The film, the uplifting true story of Big Issue seller James Bowen and the cat that saved his life, is sure to win the hearts of millions when it is released this winter. Will we see our back gardens overrun with ginger kittens in 2017?
“Famous felines like Street Cat Bob tug at the heartstrings and highlight important issues surrounding cats in need – and if that helps abandoned and stray cats find their forever families, it can’t be a bad thing,” said Caroline Cook from Your Cat magazine. “However, anyone who sees a film and wants to get a pet ‘just like that one’ needs to think carefully about whether they can make that commitment for the animal’s lifetime, both financially and emotionally.”
So when the kids start to pester for a Hollywood pet this summer, the safest bet might be to head to the shops and buy a cuddly plush version. No tanks to clean out for 60 years, no stinging blue tangs in the living room, no unexpected litters of puppies or kittens – and you’ll protect the Great Barrier Reef’s ecosystem, while saving animal rehoming charities a whale of work. It’s a small price to pay. After all, everyone knows fish can’t talk, Dalmatians don’t get married, and turtles don’t eat pizza.
Courtesy of INSP.ngo / The Big Issue UK