4,500 Tarantulas in a Bedroom.
I got talking to a young 1st Nations girl while camping beside the Oldman River. Somehow the subject came up to swap horror stories. I went first and hoped to top any story she came up with.
“Kathleen, my wife,” I said, “had 4,500 thousand Tarantulas, alive in a bedroom”.
The look of disbelief on the girl’s face was a treat, so I went on to explain. I have been studying the smaller native spiders for many years, but owing to their small size it was hard to watch and study them in detail. Therefore, it made sense to keep a few tarantulas alive for observations. To cut a long story short, it dawned on us that a breeding project would help the study of spider reproduction.
Our resulting breeding program was very successful, so much so that we decided to start a small business producing young captive-breed tarantulas for the pet trade. The results were many folds we were producing spiderlings free of parasites, making ideal pets, and were counteracting the import of wild spiders which was a cruel and destructive practice to the environment.
Hence, we ended up with 4,500 tarantulas in our small bedroom.
Read-on, Did the native girl top my horror story? See To be buried alive. (A hundred undertakers at work).
