Opinion: Do you find breeding spiders unethical?

[the_rotten1]

Here's a question for the people who are morally opposed to breeding spiders: Have you ever owned one? It seems that most people with objections have not.

I'll admit that I was a bit concerned about the infamous "wobble" before I got a spider, but the reputation makes the wobble sound a whole lot worse than it actually is. It isn't something that negatively impacts the health of the animal. When I first got Vriska (my spider) I kept an eye on her because I wasn't sure what to expect. What I found was that she eats better than all my other snakes, thrived in spite of the stress of changing location, and that she's a friendly, healthy snake that makes a great pet. She's docile enough that I wouldn't even bat an eyelash at letting my kids hold her. I can't say that about some of my other snakes.

If we're going to stop breeding spiders because of the wobble then are we going to stop breeding super cinnamons because they're likely to strike? How about we also stop breeding leucistics because they couldn't possibly survive in the wild with a coat that color? I mean, as long as we're picking out completely arbitrary reasons to stop breeding snakes...

If you're really worried about any animal being overbred for profit, then you should be worried about the entire pet trade. Surplus cats and dogs are a huge problem and many breeds come with health issues that hurt the animal. I can't think of any ball python morph that has as many issues as a pugnose dog or persian cat and I've never heard of ball pythons becoming an invasive species or a public nuisance.