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However, in the 1930s, three or four baby hamsters
(some suggest it was as many as eleven individu-
als), all from the same litter, were taken from the
wild and successfully bred in the Hebrew University
in Jerusalem. Some of their young were brought
to Britain. By the 1940s, some were being kepts as
pets in the United States. Though a few more wild
hamsters were caught in 1971, 1978 and 1982, these
animals did not form part of the colony from which
our pet hamsters are derived. It is amazing to think
that the millions of hamsters kept around the world,
in all their varieties, are all descended from fewer
than a dozen individuals and have only been pets for
some 70 years.
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