is this wrong?

[mo_2]

I found a small male unidentified house spider in y bathroom today, and I noticed that he was trying despiratly to find water. he trie dto get into the bathtub and then tried to drink from teh bath mat (we all know that a common household bath mat is NO PLACE to get a drink LOl). so I picked him up and tried to find something shallow enouph for him to drink from but thought that a sterile Q-tip soaked with water could work. he felt the moisture on it and started to drink imediatly. in the past I have incouraged wild spiders to stick around by giving them a cricket once in a while (neverenouph to make them dependant on humans for food). my question is, should I be doing this or should I be letting nature take it's course? I could not bear to watch this poor litte guy search despiratly for water this morning. I love spiders (I still can't belive I was an arachnophobic) and keeping various sizes of both spiders and reptiles, I have all sizes of prey items so i don't see why the wild ones can't have the occational "easy meal" delivered to them. I also like to have what I call "cleaner spiders" around that catch the escaped crickets. I do't thinkI am doing anything wrong by interfering with nature just a little, am I wrong?

 

[AfterTheAsylum]

Nope. You are doing just fine. When I was much younger I used to keeo wolf spiders in my basement to eat everything that tried to get in. I would go outside and kill wasps then throw them into the webs to make sure the wolfies had enough to eat.

 

[orcrist]

Interefering with nature. Nah. WE ARE PART OF NATURE. To think of ourselves as above or outside of nature is nothing but an ego stroke. Spider dies of thirst? Bird eats spider? Spider finds water? Spider finds cricket and eats it? Spider fed by friendly human? All natural events. We come from the same place, making webs and eating bugs is natural behavior for some organisms, growing our own food and sometimes having compassion for other creatures is natural for us. Whatever you do, that's a natural event. Just flow with it.

 

[Venom]

I don't see a problem with it. Spiders can't be domesticated, and you won't make them soft or lose their instincts, so they won't become dependent on you ( as in unable to fend for themselves in the "wild" ) even if you do feed them. I once gave drink to a thirsty C.inclusum I was free handling by placing a droplet of water on my hand near the thumb, only the little ingrate bit me immediately after it had finished drinking! Oh, by the way, I in no way recommend the handling of Cheiracanthium sp. as they are medically significant blah blah blah....