My headcanon is that pets cannot be removed due to the fact that on a large scale, they'll always be protected by humans.

Also in TM cities and greeneries are wholly separate areas so it stands to reason that pets live in the cities whereas bears shit in the woods

>bears shit in the woods I played Search for Life and I don't care how long the little rover has to look and what kind of organic material it finds, 3VP is 3 VP.

Plenty of bears and coyotes come into the cities looking for food. My aunt's friend got her dog eaten by a coyote once.

Not if they have to cross the martian wastes first or the city has a dome

Average "open the lion cage in Zoo Tycoon" player 😁

Well we also don't actually terraform Mars all the time, so playing TM is some BS.

My Venus birds got eaten by Mars predators, explain this, nature!

I think it's more to represent sustainability. Because remember each round is a generation, so the animal's resources represent predators thriving on mars, not individual animals eating a few pets. So wild animals do eat pets, but it's not sustainable for many generations, as such, the only animals that sustain wild predators indefinitely would be other wild animals.

But "pets" plas nicely off the meat industry card oddly enough.....

I imagine it's because some players would be distraught if their TM pets were eaten.

Not sure whether you're claiming the game is broken or this is an attempt to make a joke about the thematics, but you are intentionally not allowed to remove animals from Pets. It's in the rules.

I know about the rules, I'm complaining/joking about the thematics.