Is it now illegal for pet shops to sell terrapins / tortoises in the UK?

Question

Years ago all pet shops used to sell terrapins, tortoises and some even used to sell monkeys.

Now all of the pet shops in the UK only seem to stock fish? What happened? is it illegal to sell the more exotic pets? What about people that have terrapins in their homes for many years, are they nowcriminals?

Answer 1

What happened is first, the terrapins; Salmonella.  Children being what they are.. hand-mouth little critters :-),  would put the baby terrapins in their mouths or touch their faces, mouths, food with hands after handling them. It became then, necessary to prohibit the sale of the small terrapins.

Then, the tortoise; I don't know about UK, but here in the 'states you can still find box turtles and the like, however some tortoise species have become endangered due to many environmental reasons so taking them from the wild then selling them as pets is not conducive to their survival.

Finally, monkeys; again, many species of monkeys face extinction due to their popularity as 'novelty' pets.  They in fact do not make especially good pets and too many of them found their way into animal rehabs (if they were lucky) or just simply died.

Answer 2

no its just hard for the shop keepers to get these types of animals i mean monkeys come on look how much that would set them back and no its not illegal for pet shops to sell terrapins and tortoises  

Answer 3

I used to by terrapins here in the uk, also tortoises..but I don't think you can get them now...ppl were treating them cruely so that is probably why they are not seen in the pet shops anymore....a few years ago if you wanted a tortoise you had to fill in a form which was pretty intense, it was a kind of a licence to own a  tortoise...and it was also to keep track of who bought it.

Answer 4

Tortoises used to be freely and cheaply available years ago in the UK. They were popular because of shows like Blue Peter who used to get you to hibernate your tortoise. This led to early deaths for many. Tortoises were then prevented from being taken from the wild and imported to the UK - hence the shortage.

In the 1990s the Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles film caused a craze once more, but as Tortoises had become rare people looked to terrapins as a substitute. I remember seeing cute little 1" terrapins in every aquarium store.

Problem was these little terrapins grew - and fast. Far bigger than people realised. Children tried to play with them. They carried salmonella and had a habit of nipping so fell out of favour. As they got bigger people tried to rehome them, when they couldnt many were released into the wild in ponds where they caused chaos to the eco system.

Now to get a tortoise it has to have been captive bred in this country or imported from a captive bred source. As they take so long to mature this means they are not so readily available, though there are many specialist reptile stores where you can get one from. But they are not cheap. You will also need the specialist items to keep your animal healthy. When I got my Sulcata tortoise it cost me around £600 for the 6 month old tortoise and its equipment. He is now around 3 and growing rapidly.

As for Monkeys I too remember seeing them in pet stores, however legislation has tightened to make it much harder to get hold of these now endangered species. In the case of these creatures this is a good thing. They are not dolls

Answer 5

It's more the exotic pet shops that sell Tortoises. They have to prove they are UK breed.

Terrapins were all the rage when the film 'Mutant Ninja Turtles' came out. All kids wanted terrapins, parents brought them as they were babies and only a little bit bigger than a fifty pence piece. As the terrapins grew they out grew their tanks or the kids got bored, so most were either flushed down the loo (by kids thinking they'd turn into Ninja Turtles)r they were let go into ponds in parks, rivers and canals. The terrapins became a problem as they would eat the fish and small baby water fowl. I think that's the reason we don't see that many terrapins nowa days.

Answer 6

A few weeks back, in a local garden centre, I saw a small tortoise for sale for nearly £300-00

Answer 7

My mum has two tortoises which she has had for over 40 years and was told they are now worth a lot of money because import of tortoises has now been banned. They used to be imported in huge laundry-like baskets full, and only the ones on top survived.  All the others suffocated. It was barbaric and now the import of them is banned (I only know this because I watched a prog on TV about it!). don't know about terrapins. My cousin had one in a little plastic pool and I always felt desperately sorry for it!  It had such a tragic expression!