Zootopia fans in China flock to buy wild animals.

Zootopia fans in China flock to buy rare £2,000 fennec foxes

Chinese fans of Disney animated smash hit Zootopia are flocking to buy rare fennec foxes, despite the miniature African species being unsuitable as pets, reports the LA Times.

The Times reports the animals, which are appealing to city dwellers as a smaller alternative to the more populous red fox, are available to buy in China for about $3,000 (£2,100), despite being prohibited from public sale. A rush of interest followed Zootopia’s March debut in Chinese cinemas. The film is now the highest-grossing animation of all time in the world’s most populous nation, with receipts of $231m.

“We normally sell them to zoos, but have received quite a few phone calls after the screening of Zootopia,” an employee of a wild animal import-export company in Liaoning province told the Times. “One family from Jiangsu province bought a fennec fox from us not long ago. Then I received three other parents’ calls, demanding the foxes.”

“If trading fennec foxes becomes widely practised in China, the illegal trade of fennec foxes from their native region will certainly increase,” Zhang Jinshuo, an associate professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Zoology, told the Times. “That will reduce the number of wild fennec foxes and ultimately could lead to the extinction of the species.”

Fennec purchasers, however, told the Times they had already decided to try to sell the animals on, after discovering they do not make great pets. The foxes are unsociable, cannot be house-trained and make a lot of noise at night.

Source.

China at it again.

Thats nuts man, i can barely stand my dogs barking. Can u imagine listening to this every day. - (Vid below)

There is no way i can deal with that. Might be great for some peeps who have a hearing issue.

@LexLas: Dang, yeah i couldnt deal with that either.

When material desire leads you to buy a wild animal which has not been properly domesticated by humans in our thousands upon thousands of years of existanceyou know you're taking it to far...

NO SHIT SHERLOCK. If they made great pets THEY'D ALREADY BE COMMON PETS.

I wanted a fennec fox as a pet before it was cool!

Damn that's just bad. Buying animals that are not domesticated is just bad for many reasons.

I've never been to China but encountered thousand of them in Japan. And their behaviour there makes me not suprised that they would do this. Worst people I've ever layed my eyes on, egotistic, loud, greedy, pushy and the list goes on.

Let's be fair, that's not really a "china" thing. Lots of countries have these exact kinds of issues. People in general seem to be just really irresponsible when it comes to owning animals. It looks to me like how Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles resulted in environmental problems because people are stupid assholes. Stupid kids see a cartoon with some cool turtles and beg mommy and daddy for a turtle. Which is fine, because they're kids and kids are SUPPOSED to be stupid. The problem is that mommy and daddy give in and get a turtle that they have no means of taking care of, and then dump it in the swamp once it gets big or the kid loses interest in it. Not to mention how in the USA it's actually illegal to sell turtles as pets if they have a carapace length of less than four inches. The ONLY reason that this law is in effect is because pet owners are stupid irresponsible assholes. A bunch of kids were getting sick from salmonella, and it was discovered that a shitload of them owned pet turtles and would put their turtles in their mouths. It was decided that 4 inches was the size at which a turtle was too big for a kid to put it in his mouth and suck on it, so the sale of smaller turtles was banned. Keep in mind, it's not as if bigger turtles are less likely to carry salmonella. It's just that the bigger turtles are too big for little kids to suck on them. The entire problem happened because people were stupid. And again, I have a hard time blaming the kids. Little kids are SUPPOSED to be as dumb as a sack of crap. But the parents don't have an excuse. When your dumbass kid asks you for a turtle or a fox because he saw a cute animal in a ****ing cartoon, the parents are supposed to say no. Kids sucking on turtles isn't something that should ever happen, because parents are supposed to know the risks and monitor how well the child is taking care of the animal. And parents ending up with a pet that they are not suited to take care of is also something that should never happen. When you give a child a pet, it is really YOUR pet. Because you can't count on the kid to not be too stupid to safely and responsibly care for it, and you can't count on the kid not just plain losing interest and leaving the animal to die. Once your kid gets a pet and stop caring for it, it is YOUR responsibility to take on the responsibilities of owniong it. But people don't do that. They never will, and it's far from a "China thing". People are simply stupid assholes when it comes to owning pets.

Hell, I don't even think that's the issue. Lots of people have exotic or strange or difficult pets, and manage to do fine because they've properly looked into the animal's needs and determined that they can safely care for it. And when it comes down to it, it's important to own a pet that one can remain interested in. Domesticated or not, a lot of cats and dogs are owned by people who just plain have no interest in cats and dogs. So the cats and dogs get neglected and have a pretty shitty life.

Point being: if you're gonna get ANY pet (regardless of if it's domesticated or "a wild animal"), then one should know precisely what qualities they want in a pet and have a realistic assessment as to whether or not they have enough interest (and money) to SAFELY provide the animal the care that it needs for the duration of its life. If you can do this, then hell...get a freaking cobra if that's what you want. The problem arises when people take an animal and try to make it something that it's not. Owning foxes would be fine if the owners recognized that foxes are not good houspets and need to live in an environment that is appropriate to foxes. If one has the time and interest and money to safely provide such an environment, then I have zero objections to owning foxes. The problem arises when people take a fox and try to make it a housecat, or when people get an alligator and then dress it up in clothes and drive it around on a motorcycle as if it was their ****ing child. It's not your son, it's a ****ing alligator. Stop treating it as your child, stop trying to force it to be your friend. If you can safely owning an alligator while treating it as the dangerous animal as it is and providing it with conditions that are safe to you and the alligator, then by all means get an alligator. But if your ownership of an alligator requires you to dress it up as a child and force it to live in your bedroom, if your ownership of an alligator requires you to maintain the illusion that it is your friend instead of a wild animal, then you don't ****ing get an alligator.

I'm not even going to attempt to argue that only domesticated animals should be kept as pets. But regardless of what kind of animal you get, it should be treated as what it is rather than what you wish it was. If what you want in a pet is embodied by a cobra, and if you're able and willing to properly take care of that cobra, then get a cobra. But if you're getting a cobra because you saw a cute cobra in a ****ing cartoon and want your real live cobra to act like the animal in the cartoon, then you don't get a cobra.

I've visited China and can confirm those type of behaviors are not exclusive to tourists; that's the way majority of the people act over there.

@MrGeezer:man, people have problems today ... I thought we were over this 'owning and objectivating' stage already ...