Unintended Consequences

I love Finding Nemo. It's one of my favorite Disney movies. 

The main plot is triggered when a diver kidnaps Nemo from his home reef. Nemo spends the next chunk of the movie in a tank with other fish, who all want to escape and go back to the sea. Surely the movie is saying that fish belong in the wild? 

And yet Finding Nemo made clown fish so popular that the pet trade has been catching all types of wild clown fish. Now they're all threatened. People don't know that when they buy a clown fish, they're contributing to the disappearance of that species. And it's not just fish that are taken from the wild. Only some pets come from breeders. A lot of them are still taken from the wild, and not always legally.

And another unintended consequence of the movie? After people saw it, a lot of them flushed their fish down the toilet. They wanted to free the fish. But most fish are never going to survive that. Not all places dump their sewage directly into the ocean (thankfully). That water gets treated. And that will kill fish. But even if it didn't kill the fish, you should NEVER release pets into the wild. They usually aren't native to the area, and assuming they survive abandonment, they can destroy wild species and habitats. Even if the pets are native, they can spread disease to other wildlife.

Even domestic pets can suffer from movies. When a popular dog movie comes out, people rush to buy that breed of dog. And then those people often get rid of the dog soon after, flooding the rescue shelters. 

No matter how much you like a movie, you should never get an animal unless you've done all the research, and are prepared to take care of that animal through its entire life. Including vet care. And make sure your animal comes from a rescue, or a good breeder. 

Actually, I read Watership Down in middle school. I loved it, and decided to get a rabbit. I did the research, and finally got a little bunny. She lived twelve years. She was a lot of work, but she was the sweetest thing in the world. So yeah, you can make it work. But an animal should never be an impulse buy. They're living creatures, not toys. 

Movies should be careful with how they advertise animals. But even in Finding Nemo, which seems to discourage people from putting fish into tanks, people will still find ways to misread things.

Maybe all animal movies should come with some kind of disclaimer, or educational content @_@