What to do if you find a tarantula? This may seem obvious to most tarantula lovers (save it and put it somewhere safe, duh!) but this is more for the people who do not like spiders, have no interest in keeping tarantulas or could not keep it for whatever reason.

It was a triggering Facebook meme that inspired me to write this post to be honest. The meme in question told a disturbing tale about how a couple had found a tarantula in a container of grapes and decided to drown it with hot water to kill it and fix the problem.

Now that in itself is just terrible and breaks my heart to think about, but perhaps many other people may have done the same. After all, how many of us think we’ll encounter a big hairy spider in our lives and are trained on the proper protocol to deal with situations like this? That couple was obviously freaking out and I’d like to believe that if they’d had better information available to them, they might have acted differently and in a more humane way.

What can you do?

It might be tempting to call pest control or take matters into your own hands (like that misguided couple), but there’s no need to panic and hurt this animal. As long as you keep calm and don’t make the tarantula feel threatened, you are not in danger. It’s important to remember this – tarantulas are NOT aggressive – they are defensive – and they are much more afraid of you than you are of them!

What to do if you find a tarantula

First, you should work to contain or catch the tarantula with a clear container or large tupperware or deli cup. The Dark Den has a great tutorial about how to safely and easily catch a tarantula here:

If you put a lid on the container, make sure it has a few small holes in it for ventilation. Be sure to be careful, slow, and gentle to avoid the tarantula feeling like it must defend itself.

I don’t advise trying to handle a tarantula with your hands if you have no experience with tarantulas, but if you can’t catch them with a container and must use your hands, here’s a great tutorial on several ways to safely pick up a tarantula (and test its temperament beforehand):

Once you actually catch and secure the tarantula in a safe place, you can looks for places to release it. You likely have stumbled across this tarantula because you live in an area where they frequent, so you’ll likely be fine if you simply release it back outside where it belongs. However, don’t just release it anywhere. Make sure the area is safe – where there’s no heavy car or foot traffic. Also, a quiet, dark place will be very much appreciated by your tarantula as that’s exactly the environment that they love. If you want to be REALLY nice (and hopefully you do), you might snap a picture of the tarantula and go on Google Images so you can find out what species it is – this might help you release it back into the most appropriate area.

In the event that you can’t release it or don’t know what the hell to do with this tarantula and have managed to secure it in a container (with holes for ventilation), there are Facebook groups that are centered around tarantula owners looking to adopt the spiders that people either don’t want or can’t take care of. Pop into a Facebook group such as The T Time Adoption/Rescue and it won’t be long before you will have a volunteer who can at least take the tarantula off your hands and either care for it themselves or release it somewhere safe where it will thrive. At the very least, these caring tarantula lovers will be able to give you some good advice on what your next steps should be!

My main point is, there is no need to freak out and kill/hurt a harmless tarantula. There are many options and none of them involve hurting a creature that does not want to hurt you. If you have any other ideas, please comment below!