The charity has seen record numbers of reptiles being handed in because of rising costs, as we've discovered.
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00:00The National Centre of Reptile Welfare in Tunbridge rescued twice as many animals in the last year
00:05as people are increasingly unable to afford the expense of pets.
00:08The main driving force at the moment is economics.
00:10People are really struggling to pay their bills.
00:12Reptiles are not necessarily the cheapest animal to look after,
00:15with your heating and your lighting, and people are really struggling.
00:18We asked Chris to show us some animals that have been donated in the past year.
00:22So Barney came in last year now.
00:25So he's a giant gecko from New Caledonia.
00:28He and his wife came in because his owner was really struggling with various issues, shall we say.
00:34He's actually worth quite a lot of money.
00:36They're probably worth a couple of thousand pounds.
00:38But, again, it was a classic situation.
00:40His circumstances have changed.
00:42He really wasn't able to look after it.
00:44Last year was a really challenging year for us.
00:46The year before we had 2,600 animals come through the door.
00:49Last year we had 4,200.
00:51So that was a really significant increase.
00:54With so many new arrivals, space is becoming scarce within the centre,
00:57forcing volunteers to squeeze the animals into closer quarters.
01:00Snakes, we always assume, would be not social animals.
01:03Unfortunately, due to circumstances we just had so many recently,
01:07we are actually having some of these keep two snakes in a box.
01:13We spoke with exotic animal charity Born Free about the impacts of the cost-of-living crisis.
01:18You certainly see a lot more news stories recently about animals being abandoned.
01:25And for animals which require heating and humidity and all things like that,
01:31as soon as the costs of those resources go up,
01:35it's going to put a pressure on people who are keeping these animals.
01:39Well, the most important thing, if you're thinking of taking a pet on,
01:42and it doesn't matter whether it's a reptile, amphibian, cat, dog, donkey,
01:45do your research first.
01:47Work out exactly how much it's going to cost
01:49and, importantly, how long the animal's going to live
01:51and take those into consideration.
01:53Evie McEwan, KMTV, Tunbridge.