New Billboard Outside Petco Says, ‘Bowls Are for Soup, Not Fish’

PETA Calls For End to Chain’s Irresponsible Sales of Fish, Hamsters, Reptiles, and Other Live Animals

For Immediate Release:
July 21, 2020

Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382

As part of its national campaign urging Petco to stop selling betta fish and other live animals, PETA has placed a billboard just outside the store on E. Coliseum Boulevard that shows a fish confined to a small bowl and urges, “Never buy betta fish.”

“Petco treats betta fish and other animals like disposable merchandise, with little regard for their specific needs,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on the chain to stop profiting from the misery of these vulnerable animals.”

A PETA video exposé revealed that listless, sick, and dead bettas were found floating in cramped, barren plastic containers with low water levels at Petco stores across the country. A PETA Asia investigation of Thailand’s betta fish industry, including two facilities that supply fish to Petco, revealed that bettas were found gasping for air on waterless trays as workers roughly sorted them for shipping. Some, who had likely suffocated, were seen rotting on the floor, and others were found floating motionless in tanks of filthy water. Bettas are typically packed without food and left to starve for days during international transport.

PETA’s exposés of animal suppliers to big-box stores like Petco have repeatedly revealed abusive and filthy conditions. One supplier of guinea pigs, hamsters, chinchillas, and other small animals was caught freezing animals alive and gassing them by the dozens. Another massive dealer of snakes, lizards, hamsters, and other animals was caught starving animals, stuffing them into severely crowded containers, freezing them alive, and leaving them in shipping containers without food or water for days.

The ad is located just outside the Petco in Glenbrook Plaza, at 315 E. Coliseum Blvd.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, which is a human supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.