17 replies to this topic

[Pup & Bunny]

As some of you may know, we've got a 24/7 live video stream from Pixie's tank online at www.hamstertank.com. This uses the popular ustream.tv website to handle the video streaming. I was checking out ustream's other channels with similar keywords - "hamster", "live", etc - and came across the following appalling discovery:

<! Links removed so as to not contribute traffic/hits to this ridiculous endeavor !>

This guy keeps his three hamsters underwater in this tiny tank which wouldn't even be big enough for one hamster! The justifications that he uses are just absurd!

• "Dwarf hamsters are small, and provided a wheel to exercise on they don't need a lot of space"
• "The hamsters are comfortable and safe, they are let out to play once a week while I clean/restock the habitat, and as best I can tell it makes no difference to them that they live underwater"

Argh! Angry! Wish we could do something about this!

Edited by Pup & Bunny, 09 December 2012 - 05:57 AM.

[Ping]

Unfortunately there are many people everywhere that just don't know about the size guidelines for hamster habitats. To be fair to them, many not-so-recent books on hammy care, a number of websites and even the pet stores themselves perpetuate the idea that hamsters are small and so only need small cages. This guy could well have seen three hamsters living together in a cage that size in the pet shop and just continued to keep them in the same size environment. It's not actually the worst I've seen of horrendous cages :-/

[lahaynes]

There is way to many things that could go wrong.. and even his backup plans could fail. The video that he had on his blog about the swimming rats, it was like I was holding my breath the entire time! and they only had that small round ledge to stand on to get their heads above the water!

This seems to be more of a science experiment than anything else!

[theta]

Oh my, that is horrible!

[SyrianPumpkin]

I've commented on his youtube video many times saying how the cage is small and cruel.

[Zoe's Zoo]

Honestly I can't understand WHY you would do that? It's just pointless and I think that it would definitely cost more time and money to keep them like that. It's not even beneficial to the human. Perhaps for a few hours for a science project or something, would be interesting, but permanently? It's just not fair to the hamsters.

[Illa]

You can't change him, as cruel as it is.
It's just like, people like this need to do reasearch before buying a pet.
Hamsters are not fish. They cannot breath underwater, even if he has a 24/7 supply of oxygen.
Fish breathe the same oxeygen as we do, so it's actually no big help.
I wouldn't be suprised if they will die very soon.

[Mika]

As cruel as this is , i would suggest removing any links.
By posting it , members coming around for a brief moment may click on it .
It merely gives him more views which can only mean one of two things ;;

1. Someone will think this is okay.
2. He thinks this is okay and continue.

by ignoring it , we can have it slowly be buried under youtube videos of other kinds.

[Pup & Bunny]

Fair point MiKA. I will remove the links. Just a shame that there isn't anything more aggressive that can be done! Ah well...

[theta]

Sadly I have also seen other things that say "How long can a hamster hold their breath underwater, mine has been for 20 minutes now?"

[Pup & Bunny]

Sadly I have also seen other things that say "How long can a hamster hold their breath underwater, mine has been for 20 minutes now?"

WHAT?!?!?

[theta]

Yes they were trying to break a world record...

[Amaryllis]

As unpleasant and unfortunate as this is, there's nothing we can do about this. Topics on this and similar videos have been posted before and I think most of the forum has come to the conclusion that the best thing you can do is ignore this and hope that by not contributing to such horrible means of seeking attention, the person will stop. If we post topics about it, even without links, there's likely going to be someone curious who tries to look it up and find the videos... which is what we don't want.



Personally, I just feel sick when I see an animal being abused like that and I can do nothing to stop it, so I prefer not to watch. All we can do at this point is hope that someone who actually knows the responsible parties will inform an adult or authorities; over the internet, there's very little we can do.

Edited by Amaryllis, 10 December 2012 - 05:50 AM.

[theta]

I completely agree Amaryllis. Some had posted a video about this and they kept their hamster underwater at all times and people were applauding him for 'amazing technology for getting them in there' and I was horrified when he said "thanks! I can't stop doing this! It's like an addiction that is so fun!!! " he was replying to a comment and I hope this ends and the ASPCA and RSPCA arrest all of those sick people.

[TheHammyLove]

I hope this ends and the ASPCA and RSPCA arrest all of those sick people.

Couldn't agree more