Leopard geckos, rats, corn snakes, hedgehogs, cockroaches: a small trip around campus can be more exciting than a trip to the zoo.
According to Maureen Isleib, associate director of Residential Life, only caged or aquarium animals (read: no cats and dogs) are allowed in University housing. Despite these restrictions, exotic pets have flourished.
Among the most popular exotic pets to keep are hedgehogs; there are two owned by students in the class of 2008.
“I got Winston Q. Hugglesworth III over fall break because I wanted a little furry friend whose existence is superior to that of any hamster, gerbil or rabbit,” said Holly Wood ’08, a hedgehog owner.
For other hedgehog owners, these exotic pets bring out their parental instincts.
“He’s definitely our son and we’re his mommy and daddy,” said Mike Zimmerman ’08, co-owner of a hedgehog named Mortimer Pants. “I guess it could be viewed as a little bit pathetic, but whatever.”
For others, owning an unusual pet is more than just a bragging point—it’s a science project conducted dormside. Travis Fitzgerald ’09 was intrigued when his crayfish, aptly named The Don, devoured the other nine fish in his collection.
“I want to create a mafia, get more crayfish and see what happens,” Fitzgerald said.
With seven crusted geckos, four leopard geckos and four corn snakes in her Butterfield dorm room, keeping reptiles has become a highlight of Megan Baumer’s ’08 daily life.
“It’s so much fun watching an egg become a living animal,” Baumer said, a former Bronx Zoo employee.
Lucas Hoeffel ’09, owner of two Madagascar hissing cockroaches named Guiseppe and Gazpacho, kept his pets after he finished using them for a biology project.
“They’re pretty much like small dogs,” said Hoeffel. “Chitin coated dogs.”
For other pet owners, chance plays a factor in choosing an animal.
“I went downtown looking for a sofa and ended up with some turtles instead,” said Conor Veeneman ’09, owner of two slider turtles.
With exotic pets comes an exotic array of problems. Baumer had difficulties keeping her pet bearded dragon in Clark last year because her ophidiophobic roommate was frightened of the reptile and the crickets she kept to feed it.
“My roommate used to complain that Humphrey [the bearded dragon] was looking at her,” Baumer said. “[Also] she’d wake me up in the night because she heard a cricket somewhere.”
Nicole Weiskopf ’06, who has kept caged pets since her sophomore year, had to spend $400 to have two mammary tumors removed from her rat, Dinah.
“Animals in general, especially in a college setting, are a lot more work than you’d expect,” Weiskopf said.
Maddie Thomson ’08 has no problems with her roommate’s prize-winning albino rabbit, Duncan.
“He has the run of the room,” she said. “He’s a nice distraction.”
Despite Wesleyan’s population of albino rabbits and crusted geckos, some remain unimpressed.
“You’d expect a lot of unusual pets from a lot of unusual people,” Veeneman said. “But there are no monkeys, raccoons or squirrels or anything.”
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