The Problem of Wildlife in Schools

Keeping classroom pets, in particular and those considered “exotic,” creates risks for animals and children alike. Born Free USA has published a report, Teachers’ Pets: The Exploitation of Wild Animals in the Classroom, which extensively documents the animal welfare and public safety concerns around the use of animals in schools.

This webpage will help educators navigate this subject and select animal and child-friendly alternatives.

Educators: Take Our Survey!

Help Born Free USA adapt our classroom pets program to the needs of teachers and students by completing our survey for educators.

As a special thank you, you can be enrolled in our pilot classroom monkey adoption program. Your class will symbolically adopt Freeman, a monkey at Born Free USA’s primate sanctuary who was once kept as a pet. In addition to digital photos of Freeman, his biography, and a printable adoption certificate, your class will also receive regular email updates about Freeman.

The first 10 survey responses will receive a physical adoption package that includes the items above, regular updates, and also a plush monkey toy.

The Problem: What’s Wrong with Keeping Classroom Pets?

  1. Animals’ needs are not met. Commonly kept classroom pets have specialized needs that cannot be met when kept in a school environment.
  2. Classroom pets suffer injury and premature death. Classroom pets often suffer injury when handled by young children who do not know how to safely interact with them. Many classroom pets die prematurely.
  3. Classroom pets often have a negative learning impact on students. Educators often believe that classroom pets teach responsibility and care for living creatures but, in fact, due to regular instances of injury (and even death), poor treatment, (often unintentional) neglect, and the artificial, unnatural ways in which these animals are kept in captivity, keeping a wild pet in the classroom can have a negative learning impact on children and cause them to learn inaccurate information.
  4. They are expensive. If provided with a baseline level of veterinary care, good nutrition, and acceptable level of general care, the cost of keeping pets in the classroom often requires significant financial investment over multiple years, and even decades.
  5. They can be dangerous. While schools take measures to protect children from common allergies to things such as nuts, and maintain cleanliness to protect against spread of illness, classroom pets can pass illness to children, as well as pose risks for those with allergies to pet dander, among other things. Preventing direct contact with classroom pets for vulnerable children will not provide protection from allergies or illness as both can become airborne. Illnesses that can be transmitted by classroom pets to children include E .coli, MRSA, salmonella, and ringworm.

Guinea Pigs
Social animals active at dawn and dusk; require quiet. Can cost up to $800 per year and live for 5-7 years.
Reptiles
Have highly specialized needs and need specific environments. Can cost up to $1,300 per year. Some can live for decades.
Fish
Have complex space and water needs. Few veterinarians treat fish. Can cost up to $200 per year and live for 10-15 years.
 

There are many risks – both to the animals themselves and the children in your classrooms – associated with the keeping of classroom pets, with little benefit. For this reason, Born Free USA is advocating for an end to the practice, and promoting alternatives that are both animal and child-friendly.

Turtles
Can cost up to $1,250 per year and live 50+ years.
Hamsters
Nocturnal and solitary; easily startled and can bite when scared.
Rabbits
Can cost up to $1,200 per year and live 8-12 years.
 

Alternatives to Pets in the Classroom

Nature Walks

Allowing children to safely explore local wildlife on nature walks. Not only does this avoid unintended animal welfare consequences, it also allows children to develop an understanding of wildlife living in their natural environment.
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Pollinator Gardens

Giving over a part of your school grounds to grow wild and planting wildflowers can attract pollinators such as bees and butterflies. This creates positive learning experiences as well as creating discussions and understanding around biology, ecosystems, and habitat protection.
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Partnering with Local Animal Shelters

Partnering with local animal shelters where domesticated animals such as dogs can be brought to school to meet the children supports understanding of the importance of animal care and rescue. It is vital that any shelter partners are vetted to ensure no exotic animals are brought into the classroom and that any dogs are comfortable around children. Interactions should stop immediately if any animals show signs of stress or fear. Older children may like to volunteer at the shelter if appropriate.
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Symbolic Adoptions

Many accredited sanctuaries offer animal “adoption” programs where classes can symbolically adopt an animal at the sanctuary. These programs usually offer photographs and regular updates. This will allow children to learn about the lives of animals while the animals themselves remain under the care of experts. Born Free USA is offering a pilot classroom adoption program and your class could be one of the first to receive this special offer!
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Inviting Speakers

Animal experts such as veterinarians, sanctuary workers, conservationists, animal rescuers, and others all have great stories to share with young people. Inviting them into the classroom (in person or virtually) can open up new relationships and understanding. Not only this, but virtual speakers can share their stories from different parts of the world!
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Read the Report

Teachers’ Pets: The Exploitation of Wild Animals in the Classroom evaluates the keeping of exotic pets in the classroom and mobile zoo visits to schools. Our report summarizes the landscape of both practices in the U.S. and the corresponding lack of regulation; outlines the public health and safety issues; highlights the animal conservation and welfare concerns; and dismantles the alleged educational “benefits.” We argue that banning classroom pets in school districts and prohibiting mobile zoos from school property remain the most effective and logical solutions to protect future generations of students and help keep wild animals in the only environment in which they truly belong: the wild.

Addressing this topic has become more urgent since 2020, when COVID-19 became a worldwide pandemic that impacted the lives of millions. Since 1919, there have been at least 19 major global pandemics associated with wildlife, killing hundreds of millions of people and countless animals globally. Because wild animals remain the main vectors of many diseases with the potential to become the next major pandemic, minimizing direct contact between humans and wild animals should be prioritized; especially with the most vulnerable populations like children.

In addition to telling the stories of several classroom pets who died tragically preventable deaths due to miseducation or neglect by handlers in schools (including students, parents, and teachers), we use statistics to illustrate the unnecessary and potentially harmful nature of allowing wild animals in schools.

Teachers' Pets Report Cover

Teachers' Pets: The Exploitation of Wild Animals in the Classroom - Full Report (PDF)

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Teachers' Pets: The Exploitation of Wild Animals in the Classroom - Full Report (Flip Book)

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One-Page Report Summary (PDF)

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Hear their Stories

Hoppy the Kangaroo

Hoppy the baby kangaroo died after escaping a mobile zoo’s transport van.

Hoppy was a 10-month-old baby kangaroo who was owned and exploited by a mobile petting zoo. In April 2019, she was taken alongside other animals to Little Rock Air Force Base for an event. Hoppy was last seen in a cloth pouch on the back of the headrest of the front seat of the petting zoo’s truck. What followed is unclear, but she escaped the vehicle via an open window, possibly after being started, and fled into a nearby wooded area. Days later, Hoppy was found dead with evidence of wounds from an attack by a dog or coyote. The petting zoo faced criticism following Hoppy’s death, but its owner noted that their business was licensed by the USDA and therefore, operating within the law, and concluded that “Anytime you’re dealing with animals, things can happen.”
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Cupcake the Hamster

Former classroom hamster Cupcake suffered a stroke in the home of his new owners and was denied medical care for a week before being killed with rat poison.

Cupcake was kept as a classroom hamster before the mother of one of the students agreed to take Cupcake home. Cupcake lived with the family for two and a half years until one day the mother came home to discover that the hamster had suffered a stroke. She explained: “There was a marked weakness to his right side, he couldn’t turn his head and had difficulty walking. For about a week, Cupcake mostly slept, hardly ate or drank and barely dragged around his glass cage.” Having failed to seek any treatment for Cupcake for a week, she finally took the hamster to the vet, who confirmed a stroke. Not being able to afford humane euthanasia, the woman took Cupcake home where, she says, she “spent several days with [her son], then nine, staring at Cupcake, wondering what to do.” Ultimately, she decided to use rat poison to kill Cupcake. Over the course of two days, the women sprinkled rat poison on Cupcake’s food. It took the hamster three days to die. Rat poisons cause great suffering to their victims, causing a long drawn out and often painful death.

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Unnamed African Dwarf Frogs

Three African dwarf frogs who were kept as classroom pets died on the first weekend after they were adopted by a student’s family.

In a story shared in a blog titled “That Time I Killed My Kid’s Classroom Pet #Oops,” the writer described their experience after agreeing to adopt three African dwarf frogs from their child’s school. Due to their unpreparedness to take care of the animals and failure to properly read the animal care instructions provided, they ended up killing the frogs within the first weekend. The blog post concludes with the parents stating that they would make a trip to the pet store to replace the animals, failing to demonstrate any remorse or regret for these animal deaths that were largely preventable and demonstrating a profound sense that the animals’ lives were inherently disposable.
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Unnamed Hamster

A teacher sees the premature death of her class’ pet hamster as a blessing that saved the animal from further suffering.

An elementary school teacher wrote about the sudden death of a hamster kept as a classroom pet, describing the animal’s premature death as a blessing that prevented further suffering. She wrote: “It is no sad event. In fact, looking back over this little guy’s life, he has really been through a lot of trauma. Being a classroom pet to 20 hyper kids (who think poking a hamster with pencils is a sport) probably didn’t prolong his life. I am forced to reflect on his death and the death of my previous hamster, who passed away alone in my classroom over last Thanksgiving break… [D]warf hamsters have a life expectancy of two [to three] years, so I was forced to reflect on what might have caused his departure a year [or two] early. … [H]is classroom experience with 20 seven-year-old students feeding him crayons probably had a little to do with it.”
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Donate to Fight the Exotic Pet Trade

Around the world, wild animals are taken from their natural homes or bred in captivity to languish in cages or tanks for human amusement – including untold numbers of small animals commonly kept as classroom pets like birds, reptiles, and fish.

You can help protect wildlife from the exotic pet trade by making a donation to Born Free USA. Your donation supports work to end the exotic pet trade through legislation and public education; advocate for an end to the use of captive wildlife in entertainment; fight the exploitation of animals in captivity through reports and rescue; and halt the illegal trafficking of protected species for the pet trade.

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Born Free USA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. EIN 94-6187633.