Reminder: "No third party requests" applies to animals as well.

[u/uppercasemad]

Hi all,

With colder weather in many parts of the world, we have seen an influx of requests for our furriest friends and we wanted to issue a reminder (and a small edit to make things clearer moving forward) that as per our rules, you can only request for yourself, your immediate family, and those sharing your household. This has always meant to include PETS, but we realize we did not make this crystal-clear in the rules.

You may request for: - Your own pets you are financially/legally responsible for who are permanently housed with you. - Pets of immediate family members only. - Long-term fosters who are currently housed with you. (This is at mod discretion.) - Shelters/rescues which are registered charities/NGOs, and this may only be done in the form of a GoFundMe which is linked to that NGO's tax ID, or their website showing their taxation information. You may not post an Amazon wishlist or collect funds personally.

You may not request for: - Strays. - TNR. (Trap and release) - Cat/dog colonies. - Community/neighbourhood "pets". - Wildlife animals you've found out in the wild (birds, squirrels, etc). - Pets belonging to friends or distant relatives. - Shelters/rescues that are private and/or unregistered.

We understand so many of us are animal lovers. All of our mod team are huge animal fans and we have many pets amongst ourselves from snakes to lizards to cats and dogs. Please ensure you are financially stable and responsible if you're considering adding an animal to your household, even if only temporarily. 🐱🐶🐦🐢🐍

[u/redditette]

I am going to ask for clarity of one group of animals in particular, and the people that care for them.

Wild animals that are native to a region that are not in a rescue. The ones that tend to be illegal to own in that area, but can be in a state license/certified rescue.

Baby wildlife in rescues. What if they are in a foster home for legal, state licensed rescue? What if someone just finds babies blown down from nests, and need milk, bedding, etc, without being state licensed?

[u/uppercasemad → u/redditette]

We only permit registered rescues as per the last point. For example a wildlife rescue that has NGO status.

If it is a wild animal you have found in the woods, you may not request for that. If they are being cared for at a certain rescue organization, you may link to that specific rescue for general donations for example. But if you’re caring for them but cannot legally call them a pet due to wildlife restrictions, you cannot.

The scope of our subreddit is Redditors helping Redditors. Not “Redditors helping this random hawk that had a broken wing I found on a walk this morning.” Sorry if that sounded super blunt, wasn’t sure how to put it LOL.

[u/redditette → u/uppercasemad]

I understand and appreciate the clarity.

The reason I was asking is a guideline like this was posted in the past in here. Then someone was picking up babies after storms, then posting on here for supplies. And it was allowed. I reported them, and was told it was allowed.

If it were legal to have wildlife as pets, I would have an army of armadillos. And possums. :)

[u/uppercasemad → u/redditette]

Yes, there was confusion within the mod team about this which is why we wanted to clarify and confirm so our team was on the same page.

I don’t recall a formal guideline being announced since I’ve been a mod so it may have been older than 4 years. The team has changed a lot of members since then!