Is it cruel to cage Tarantula's?

Surprisingly, No...quite the opposite, in fact...

 

Tarantula's like to feel secure and comfortable in their surroundings. Females in the wild have been known to never leave a 2ft square radius of their burrows in their entire 20 year lives. Males are the same until ultimate moult, when they usually feel the need to wander and go looking for females. Other than that, they are more than happy to stay put. Being primarily ambush predators,T's wait for prey to come to them, and will usually only go hunting for it should there be a lack of plentiful supply wandering straight past the burrow.

 

In captivity, spiders adapt well, form a burrow where they are most comfortable, and then stay close to it. From a great many observations, and one careless keeping incident where a tank was left open for 12 hours, it seems to me that my spiders do not want to leave, and are happy where they are. Again, there are exceptions. Ginny, my A. seemanni does undoubtedly have it in her genes to try and get out of her tank, and has tried many times. This has served to me as an indicator that something about her conditions is not right, and so I have tweaked them to minimize the problem, which is now down to the very occasional attempt.

 

Of the 2 sling escapes I have had so far, both seemed to be caused by curiosity alone, and neither spider left the enclosure even though they were on the outside of it !

 

Tarantulas have been known to become stressed when the tank is too big. Prey items are easily lost, and the spider feels less secure in its home if there is too much open space, or floor area. The perfect tank size, in my opinion is something around 3 or 4 times the outstretched legspan of the spider itself.

 

However, there are people that keep fully grown 8" T's in deli cups. IMO, this is nothing short of barbaric. 

 

In summary- if we get the conditions right, keep the food coming, and find them some love action when the time is right, there is no reason to think that keeping  tarantulas is cruel, and that the animal is unhappy or stressed because it is confined. In many ways I think that the spider (which wants to be largely left alone to do its thing) is benefitting additionally from the fact that nothing can get IN to disturb it.