Extraordinary pet stores and the cool animals they keep

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpN4Muwq5MY
Does anyone now of any pet stores that hold unusual animals, besides the common small mammals, birds, pet shop fish and reptiles? This crazy pet store in Japan looks to have everything. Although the conditions for the animals look less ideal. Does anyone know of some really large petstores also?

 

The conditions at that Japanese petshop are for most species realy horrible ! Most of the species ( mammals, snakes, birds ) are bred in captivity in larger numbers so these all will be captive-bred, the Star tortoises I'm affraid will be wild-caught.
The most unussual species are the young owl and the armadillos but all other species I've seen in pet-shops in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.
In Germany there seem to be a real big shop ( if I remember right it's called Kolle (?) ) and they even seem to have species like Sloths ( Euro 4000 ! ) for sale ! I've however never been there.

 

Not a large pet store, but next to my old high school was a small store that often sold exotics alongside purebred puppies. I recall, they had a marmoset, coatimundis, and a pair of lemurs that I can't remember the species of. They also had a bunch of prairie dogs at one point, but those sold out very quickly. Didn't think they were so popular as pets. (though I'm willing to bet that a good portion of the sales were impulse buys)

 

Yes, there is a very big shop named "Kölle Zoo" and they keep many species in quite good conditions (compared to other pet shops, worse than in e.g. zoos or at animal breeders). They keep nearly all fish species you can think of in normal pet shops, the reptile section is very big too. But they have no extraordinary mammal or bird species, and no - I visit those shops frequently and have never seen them, and I also looked it up in the internet - sloths. However there could be anything I missed, so could you please tell me where the information you have is from? I'm very interested about the sloths now .

I just heard about meerkats in petshops as exotic animals, oh, and I saw free running snakes at the said "Kölle Zoo".

 

The Saudi Arabian pet trade is increadibly strange but horrifically cruel. A small slection of animals that I have seen for sale in a pet shop:
Sun bear
Syrian brown bear
Red necked wallaby
African lion
Arabian gazelle
Brown hyeana
Striped hyeana
Nile crocodile
Meerkats
Cotton top tamarins
Prevosts squirrels
Hamadrayas baboons

An I used to know people who kept (not all by one person)
Arabian leopard
Cheetah
Hawksbill turtle
Green sea turtle
Pygmy marmoset

 

Cheetahs are rather popular in the Saudi pet trade as well.

 

In one of Frank Elsners "Die grosse show der Naturwunder" ( or something like that ) the owner of Kölle Zoo was invited and he had brought a sloth with him which - as he told himself - for sale in his shop. This may have been 4 - 6 years ago. Maybe it can be found back in the Mediathek of ARD ?

 

I have heard about the animal department in the Harrods department store, and that you could buy many incredible animals like leopards, lions and even elephants there. But could anyone who visited the store back then fill in on what animals was kept there, and how the store was like?

 

Extraordinary pet stores....

I saw my first Margay in Harroda in 1971. Christian, the famous lion ultimately released to the wild, was bought from Harrods after being born in Ilfracombe Zoo.

 

Ok that's really surprising to me. But I can promise you they don't sell them regularly in every shop. I found some information in the internet telling Kölle Zoo has received sloths from Loro Parque Teneriffa but nothing more than that. They seem to have something like a cooperation with Loro Parque not just concerning sloths, but I didn't find out in which kind of severity (if they also sell their parrots, if they do researches...)

 

In Duisburg (Germany) , there's the Zoo Zajac Pet Store. They've got some cotton-top tamarins, sloths, treeshrews, ground squirrels and a lot of fishes and reptiles.
Few years ago, it seems an aye-aye was sell in this store.

 

@ TheoV : do you have any reference to the Aye-aye at the Zajac Pet Store because to me this seems VERY unlikely !

 

I've seen a picture of a pygmy anteater and if i remember correctly, an owsten's palm civet at Zajac, but never an aye-aye...

 

@ jwer : Wow, if we should believe Zootierliste only 4 zoos in Europe have ever kept Pygmy anteaters ( Frankfurt - 1955, lived only a few days, Krefeld - in the 1970-ties, Chester - 1969 - 1970 and London Zoo - no information ) ! Where did you see the picture of the Pygmy anteater ?
Also the Owsten's palm civet would be a REAL rarity, I know only about the animals which were brought to Europe for the breeding-programm.

 

London Zoo had two short lived pygmy anteaters; one in 1854 and another in 1858.

 

Pygmy anteater popped up for sale in the UK about 6-7 years ago.
Remember there are many dedicated private keepers who specialise in certain species so many things are possible.
Sometimes these animals end up in pet shops and whether it's a good thing or not it can be quite common.

 

Davy's pets here in Ireland has had macaws, raccoons, coatimundi, various monkeys, various crocodilians and lots of other exotic animals.

underground reptiles in florida also has a huge selection of not only reptiles, but monkeys, lemurs, kinkajous, foxes and other mammals also.

 

Harrods Pet Dept.

From memory it was a large spacious hall just like all the many other Harrods departments. Being Harrods it was all very clean and smart and upmarket(= high priced) too. I only remember the more usual pets on show- birds, fish, small mammals etc, and glass-fronted runs for some pedigree-type puppies and kittens. I think the more exotic and larger things like Lions, or an Elephant(!!) were only normally supplied 'on demand' and not usually kept on the premises. I think it was their boast in the old days that they could supply any type of animal.

I presume they still have a Pet department in 2015, but not sure what animals you can still buy there, or if it mainly just 'pet supplies' nowadays.

 

I’m sure you’re correct that larger animals could be ordered on demand but were not normally kept on the premises. However, I do remember seeing pumas in the pet department of Harrods in the mid 1960s; they were largest animals I ever saw there.

 

The last time I visited Harrods pet department was about 10 years ago, they still sold pets but only small domestic species, a hamster was £10 at the time they were only about £5 anywhere else. One thing on sale which sticks in my mind was a four poster bed for a small dog, price £6,000!