For Goodness ‘Snake’: Give Them Space!

PETA Provides Proof: Snakes Require Room to Stretch

Imagine being stuck in a glass box so small that you can’t stand up straight. You desperately try to find a way out, but you’re trapped. Your muscles ache and cramp, and soon you’re in constant pain. As hours turn into days and then weeks, being imprisoned in this bare and boring container takes a mental toll. You fall into despair.

For us, this is a thought exercise. But for many snakes who are confined as “pets,” this is their whole life.

The Science Shows Snakes Are Sentient, Social, and Need to Stretch

Herpetologist Melissa Amarello, who has documented social interactions of Arizona black rattlesnakes in their natural homes – not stressful laboratory settings – found that these snakes are “shy, gentle creatures with rich family lives. They can have friends. They take care of their kids.” Garter snakes are social and form friendships, and female timber rattlesnakes, who often cluster together in groups of six or more, prefer to associate with relatives. In nature, snakes bask in sunlight, burrow underground, climb trees, swim, and travel great distances – all of which are vital to their physical and mental well-being. Humans’ selfish desire to possess animals deprives them of all this.

Peer-reviewed studies make it clear that to be psychologically and physically healthy, snakes kept in captivity must – at a minimum – be able to stretch out fully and that snakes who can’t do so feel stressed and experience a range of health problems, including injuries, illnesses, degenerative joint disease, constipation, and obesity. Biologist and reptile specialist Dr. Clifford Warwick reports that stretching is “essential and fundamental to snake health and welfare.” The UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs’ (DEFRA) Animal Welfare Committee also states that snakes need to have enough space to stretch out fully.

PETA Pitches a Hissy Fit

PETA entities are pushing authorities to step up out-of-touch, terribly cruel reptile housing requirements. After PETA and the Colorado Reptile Humane Society jointly submitted a petition to the Colorado Department of Agriculture, the department drafted regulations to require that snakes be kept in enclosures long enough for them to extend their bodies fully. But when the department apparently caved to pet industry interests and changed the draft to reduce the required enclosure size to just half the animal’s body length, we submitted formal objections and spoke at a public hearing along with our allies and herpetology experts – and we won!

Colorado’s new requirement (which applies to breeders, pet shops, and animal shelters and rescues) that enclosures for snakes be at least long enough to allow the animals to stretch out fully are a long overdue first in the US, and PETA will be using these regulations to push other states to follow suit.

In the UK, snakes are the only animals who are permitted to be kept in enclosures in which they cannot fully stretch out their bodies – but PETA UK is working to change that, too. PETA UK and other animal charities sent a letter warning that legal action could be taken if DEFRA fails to update its guidelines. To raise awareness of this issue – and keep the pressure on – a PETA UK supporter squeezed herself into a tiny tank outside DEFRA’s office in London.

PETA is also suing online retailers Reptmart and Snakes at Sunset for violations of Washington, D.C.’s Consumer Protection statute, alleging that the retailers’ false claims about snake care – including advising consumers to confine snakes who grow as long as six feet to a three-foot tank – can result in snakes suffering and dying. PETA’s lawsuit notes that the retailers misleadingly market snakes as “easy” or “starter pets” and fail to provide customers with science-backed guidance on snake care.