Wild Pets Are Older Than Domestic Animals

When I was a kid and living with my folks in North Africa, I would cruise through catalogues my father would order.

I think he got a lot of the references from Stewart Brand's Whole Earth News and The Last Whole Earth Catalogue, but I'm not sure.

In any case, I lived to flip through the catalogues of Carolina Biological Supply and Edmund Scientific, and one year we got a copy of the Stromberg company catalogue, which sold all kind of cool things from Squirrel Monkeys to Quail, and from Jagarundis to Ocelots.  

The 1972 Stromberg Catalogue has now been scanned in for everyone to see what I salivated over in my youth.

Wow.  Seriously?  You could buy black-footed ferrets through the mail??

It was all there for anyone to buy:  Live Woolly Monkeys, Skunks, Chimpanzees, Raccoons, Giant Anteaters, Black Bear cubs, Great Horned Owls, Basenjis, live Trout, Afghan Hounds, Black-footed Ferrets, Porcupines, Zebras, Red Fox, Peacocks, Chipmunks, Spider Monkeys, Beaver, Badger, and English Bulldogs too.

No, we never ordered anything.  There are no dead Squirrel Monkey or Giant Anteater stories in my house.  

As a kid in Africa I had a goat, a dog, 20 chickens, a hedgehog and a couple of rabbits, and for a while a chameleon and an African Gray Parrot as well.  I did not lack for wildlife, and spent a lot of time collecting beetles and butterflies, as well as slingshot-plinking at cats, chickens, and pigeons whenever I was not trapping birds.

But the Stromberg catalogue?  Damn!  That was the thing to spark the imagination of a 12-year old boy, wasn't it?

Now, of course, the internet has made catalogues redundant. Nearly any animal you want is a click away, and most can be sold legally and kept with permit and some legal restrictions, from Bobcat to African Lion, from Vulturine Guinea Fowl to Hyacinth Macaw, from Canadian Wolf to Sun Bear.