Denver Petco Store Slammed Over Caged-Bird Sales
For Immediate Release:
September 23, 2021
Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382
Shoppers passing by the Petco store on Colfax Avenue are in for an eyeful, courtesy of PETA, which has placed a message directly in front of the store: “Never buy birds.” The ad is also up at two other locations nearby.
“A life in a cage is no life at all for a bird, and many scream, tear out their feathers, and go insane under the stress of captivity,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on shoppers to steer clear of Petco until it stops selling wild animals as though they were nothing more than household decorations.”
In nature, birds perch in treetops, splash in lakes, soar high above the ground, woo mates, feed their babies, and communicate with the other members of their often large flock—none of which they can do in captivity. The pet industry breeds birds in filthy mills, steals chicks away from their mothers, clips their wings so that they can’t fly away, and sells them and cramped cages to buyers who are often unprepared to provide them with the decades of specialized care that they need, causing many to languish and even die of neglect.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment or abuse in any other way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
PETA’s ads are located on the bus shelter at 3725 E. Colfax Ave. (directly in front of Petco), at 1522 Josephine St., and at 2300 E. 17th Ave.
