Tarantulas, scorpions, and other invertebrates are increasingly popular as pets but receive minimal welfare attention. Understanding their needs and the ethics of keeping them is an emerging area of animal welfare.
Invertebrate pet welfare sits at the frontier of our expanding moral circle. For tarantulas and scorpions, the evidence for morally significant subjective experience is weaker than for vertebrates, but the precautionary principle argues for providing conditions that meet their ecological needs. The more clearly documented welfare concern is the impact on wild populations of collection for the pet trade — for rare and specialised species, this represents genuine conservation and welfare harm independent of questions about individual suffering. Captive breeding from established populations is the preferred approach for invertebrates where trade is common.