Dayton PetSmart to Face PETA Uproar After Suffering, Death Exposed at Xenia Reptile Supplier
For Immediate Release:
December 6, 2024
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
“Don’t Buy While Animals Die!” That’s the message a group of PETA supporters will send outside of a local PetSmart store, where they’ll gather on Tuesday with signs showing whistleblower photos of sick, injured, and dead animals at Reptiles by Mack—a Xenia-based breeding operation that supplies the bearded dragons sold there and at other locations—and call on consumers to boycott PetSmart until it stops selling animals. The action follows the release of damning video footage provided to PETA by a former Reptiles by Mack employee, showing bearded dragons shaking and twitching uncontrollably as a result of a suspected virus and suffering with severed limbs and tails. The whistleblower reported that animals were denied basic necessities including water, among other severe deprivation, and found 69 bearded dragons dead in less than eight weeks.
“When billion-dollar companies like PetSmart apparently see thinking, feeling beings as nothing more than inventory, miserable breeding factories like this one thrive and animals suffer,” says PETA Vice President of Legal Advocacy Daniel Paden. “PETA is calling on PetSmart to stop being complicit in the systemic cruelty of the pet trade by ending its animal sales, and until then, urges caring consumers to take matters into their own hands by shopping elsewhere.”
Where: Outside PetSmart, 2500 N. Fairfield Rd. (at the intersection of Towne Drive), Dayton
When: Tuesday, December 10, 12 noon
Why: Many of the bearded dragons shook and twitched violently, which a supervisor attributed to adenovirus—a highly contagious and potentially painful virus spread by poor sanitation—which he said “every single” dragon at the facility had. The facility apparently took no measures to contain the virus, potentially shipping sick dragons or asymptomatic carriers to PetSmart and other pet stores nationwide. Big box pet stores’ representatives reportedly gave the facility a week’s notice before visiting, and staff worked late to “deep clean” before PetSmart reps visited the bearded dragon department—one of the chain’s “main focuses,” according to a senior worker. Otherwise, the plastic tubs the bearded dragons were confined to went up to a full week without being cleaned at all, according to the whistleblower.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
