Reports Claim "Zootopia 2" Is Causing Surging Sales of Venomous Blue Snakes. Villanova Professor Ryan Almeida Cautions It's Likely More Nuanced

As Disney’s “Zootopia 2” barrels toward becoming the highest-grossing animated Disney movie of all-time, the box office isn’t the only place fans of the franchise are apparently flocking.

Recently, CNN reported that “Zootopia 2” fans in China—where the wildly popular movie has already been crowned it’s highest-grossing foreign animated film ever—have expressed increased interest in owning Indonesian pit vipers, a striking blue and highly venomous snake portrayed as an anthropomorphic protagonist named Gary De’Snake in the film. The outlet spoke to individuals who purchased the animal after seeing “Zootopia 2” and noted surges in searches and prices among exotic pet retailers.

The reported phenomenon prompts the question: can blockbuster movies really be drivers of the exotic pet trade?

“I think they can,” said Ryan Almeida, PhD, an assistant teaching professor of Geography and the Environment at Villanova University who studies the exotic pet trade. “There have been a lot of anecdotal reports of movies and TV shows influencing the pet trade, but the peer-reviewed evidence isn’t there.”

Causation or Correlation? Reasons for Pet Demand are Tricky to Single Out

While the increased interest in the pit viper may be the latest pet trend influenced by the entertainment industry, it is certainly not the first, says Dr. Almeida, who has recently been conducting research at wildlife expos in an effort to understand more of the intricacies of various pet-related trends.

In the 1980-90s, red-eared slider turtles became massively popular pets, and it just so happened to coincide with a popular new show based off the animal.

“The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles craze, especially in the United Kingdom, probably helped drive demand for these turtles as pets,” Dr. Almeida said. “Turtle exports from the United States exploded in popularity during this time, there just is a not a peer-reviewed study demonstrating it was definitely caused by the show.”

In the 2000’s, Pixar’s “Finding Nemo” and its sequel, “Finding Dory,” reportedly bolstered purchases of clownfish and blue tangs—the fish for whom those characters were modeled. Interest in owning owls as pets was also said to have spiked among Harry Potter fans in certain parts of the world amid the height of the joint movie/book popularity.

Though much of the evidence of these trends is anecdotal, anecdotal doesn’t necessarily mean it didn’t happen. For instance, it’s difficult to completely discredit an exotic pet retailer who reported a 500% sales increase of an animal featured in a recent, very popular movie.

But it’s also difficult to prove the causation, not to mention the scale. Dr. Almeida, who is interested in the qualities that make exotic pets desirous to consumers, says that even if sales of an animal from a movie did increase, the reasons are likely far more nuanced than just their appearance on screen.

“Rarity is one important factor. We have good evidence that that certain [consumers] care a lot about rarity, that prices rise as animals become rarer and that retailers sell more animals if they are rare.”

Another is morphology, or the physical structure of the animal.

“Animals with unique morphology or distinctive colorations and patterns are more susceptible for these spikes in demand,” he said. “If Gary De’Snake was a brown, common garter snake and not a striking blue colored viper, I doubt we would see this attention.

“I suspect that that's partially why this snake species, Trimeresurus insularis, was chosen for this movie, and why the fish representing Nemo and Dory are the ones they are, and not one of the millions of more boring looking fish species out there.”

Even the on-screen portrayal, he suspects, makes a difference.

“If the characters are protagonists, that could potentially either consciously or subconsciously, lead to more positive associations with the pet, especially for something like a pit viper, which probably has sort of a negative connotation to go with it in the first place. Also, the way these animals are anthropomorphized likely matters to some degree to people who report buying these animals because of the movie.”

Case in point, one purchaser of the highly venomous viper told CNN that the movie helped give “reptile pets a better image,” saying of Gary De’Snake “I love his enthusiastic attitude and his sense of responsibility,” which would not be qualities associated with or displayed by the actual living species.

“Attention to all of this falls in line with the same sort of things we are already know are drivers of demand in the pet trade,” Dr. Almeida said.

Blockbuster Movies Probably Don’t Make Blockbuster Pet Trends

Yet, while Dr. Almeida cedes that there is likely some degree of real demand for exotic pets based on movies (as evidenced by the self-reporting of people doing so for that reason), he cautions that there is very little to suggest these types of trends typically occur on large scales, especially those large enough to make any ecological impacts.

He referenced a 2019 paper published by researchers at the University of Oxford, which looked at the purported increase of clownfish and blue tang sales after “Finding Nemo” and “Finding Dory.”

“They found that there was an increase in the amount of people searching for the animal online, but not any evidence that retailers were importing more blue tangs, consumers were buying more blue tangs, or even that people were going to an aquarium to see them.”

The findings, per the University of Oxford, suggested “that the impact of movies is limited when it comes to large scale buying of animals.” The authors also noted the role of viral media articles in suggesting this plausible causation was a hard-and-true phenomenon.

Similarly, a 2017 study concluded that, contrary to popular belief, the Harry Potter series was unlikely to have increased demand for pet owls in the United Kingdom.

Even if the demand was there at those larger scales, Dr. Almeida says meeting that demand could be a challenge, depending on the species.

“You’d potentially have to poach them in large numbers from the wild, and that's challenging in and of itself. Or they would have to be captive bred, which for some animals is relatively easy but others not so much.”

Not to mention the other roadblocks to mass exotic pet ownership.

“Some of them may be tough to obtain or even illegal to own in the first place. Also, many of the consumers of films like ‘Zootopia 2’ who might feel a strong emotional pull to an animal are children, and children aren’t the ones going out and buying pets. And, even if something like this did become a large-scale trend, trends are fleeting. The long-term impact, ecologically, would be hard to predict.”

But make no mistake. Pet trends certainly do happen on large scales, and whether they are caused by movies in part or not at all, they can have dire ecological consequences. Look at the case of the red eared slider.

“Regardless of any possible influence from the show, these turtles are relatively easy to captive breed, so therefore relatively easy to acquire,” Dr. Almeida said. “But they are tough pets. They live a really long time and are kind of hard to care for, and that leads to people releasing them into the wild. They are now among the most invasive reptile species on the planet.”

So much so, that the UK banned their sale in 1996.

“It ties back to the complications of assessing certain aspects of the wildlife trade. There are so many factors, how do we get the entire picture? It’s a wicked problem.”

Whether that problem includes movies with venomous, anthropomorphic snake protagonists appears unlikely, outside of a few highlighted cases.

“It certainly wouldn’t be supported by much hard evidence… yet,” Dr. Almeida said. “But this is very much an under-researched phenomenon. I know I’ll keep my eye out for blue insularis next time I attend a pet expo.”