PETA Expose Prompts PETCO to Make Sweeping Changes
After lengthy discussions with PETA, PETCO has announced that it will reduce the number of animals for sale in its stores nationwide by 30% and revamp its live-animal vendor certification standards to improve conditions at all of its pet suppliers, starting with Rainbow World Exotics (RWE) in Hamilton, Texas.
At RWE—a hellish facility that breeds and brokers tens of thousands of animals who will be sold at pet stores, including PETCO and PetSmart—PETA found abuse and neglect of small animals and birds, including the following:
•Rabbits were neutered by an employee using a dull razor and Clorox wipes on the animals’ open incisions. One improperly anesthetized rabbit kicked and struggled during the surgery.
•Live hamsters, rats, and mice were dumped into trash cans, and animals were thrown against the floor in an attempt to kill them.
•Many animals were denied veterinary care, including a baby Goffin’s cockatoo named Angel, who Jack told you about in January; ferrets with rectal prolapses; and a guinea pig with a broken hip.
Watch the video posted below for more details on the horrors uncovered in the investigation, and check out the piece from the Today show, where the story broke nationally.
Change is good, but we wish that PETCO would have done even better and kissed its relationship with RWE goodbye. Says PETA Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch, “It is astounding that an abusive mill like RWE can still call the nation’s two largest pet supply companies its customers.” She continues, “The decisions by PETCO and PetSmart not to cut ties with RWE make it clear that to them, the bottom line is far more important than ensuring that tens of thousands of animals avoid pain and suffering. PETA wants consumers to know that animals do not generally fare well in the pet trade. Animal shelters and pounds are the place to go when you are ready to offer a loving, responsible home to an animal.”
I couldn’t agree more. If you care about animals, don’t buy from stores that sell animals.
For what you can do to help, click here.
-Amy
