MILWAUKEE — Tarantulas, snakes, millipedes, geckos, and turtles. They aren’t usually people’s go-to pets. But one Milwaukee woman wants to convince you to adopt more of them.
“They make really good pets if they have the right care too, so yea I love them," Tatiana Gritsevskiy said.
Gritsevskiy is the owner of Tatiana's Tiny Zoo. What started as a YouTube channel has turned into an in-person outreach program designed to relax people's fears about reptiles, snakes, scorpions, and snakes.
“Not a lot of people like them, and that’s okay. But if I could destigmatize them a little bit and get people to at least be interested in them, learn some fun facts learn about their natural histories, that will lead them into considering them more and their habitats that they live in," she said.
Gritsevskiy started the in-person venture in November 2022. Her first expedition will be to the Milwaukee Foundation for Independence to do pet therapy.
She'd also like to go to, "for birthday parties, for classroom experiences, senior centers, libraries things like that.”
Gritsevskiy owns 23 animals from scorpions to spiders to lizards to snakes to a ferret and a dog. It all started when she worked at a pet store about a decade ago. Someone brought in a lizard that they could no longer care for. While the store did not sell or deal with lizards, Gritsevskiy decided to adopt the lizard. One by one, her collection grew until she had to create a separate room in her home to store all the enclosures.
One of the other goals of the program is to give people in urban areas access to animals they wouldn’t normally encounter.
"A lot of people don’t have access to good quality natural areas in their neighborhood."
When people have more exposure to these animals, they may have a greater understanding of our environment as a whole.
Reptiles and insects are indicator species meaning that they are often the first to reflect changes in an environment. If that environment suffers pollution or imbalances, reptiles and insects die and can be some of the first to die.
"It might be too late to save that habitat by the time we do notice. So that's a really important reason to get people to care about the creepy crawly animals they may not like so much.”
You can reach out to Tatiana through her Facebook page Tatiana’s Tiny Zoo. She might just change your mind about reptiles and insects.
