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Eyewitness Reports
 Ann Arbor, Michigan:
A delicate soft-shell turtle in a filthy cage without water develops a fungus that eats away his shell. Petco employees turn a blind eye.
Elk Grove, California:
Petco visitors find nine parakeets in one cage without food and water, eating their own feces through the grate.
Des Moines, Iowa:
A hamster with a severe ear infection and blood dripping from her nose receives no veterinary care.
A Petco employee puts a sign on her cage: “Dying, just leave her alone.”
Round Rock, Texas:
An unweaned baby caique parrot is seen crying and begging for food, unable to reach the feeder. The Petco employee claims that she has not been told how to hand-feed. She and other store employees refuse help offered by customers. After several days of ceaseless crying, the baby dies.
Washington, D.C.:
Customers return a parakeet after cutting off her toes and clipping her wings and tail close to her body.
Even though they had maimed the bird, the Petco employees sell them another bird.
Davis, California:
Birds are found to have psittacosis, a disease that can sicken and kill both birds and people.
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Pet store chains appalling animal abuse must stop now!
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Confined
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Dead
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Crammed
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Allegations of abuse pour into PETA’s headquarters from across the U.S. (see sidebar).
Birds and other small animals who survive are frequently sold to people who buy them on impulse and know little to nothing about properly caring for these animals. Often, birds are stuck in small cages where they go mad from loneliness and boredom, pecking frantically at cage bars, bobbing their heads up and down, shaking and even collapsing from anxiety.
One rose-breasted cockatoo with a $3,000 price tag was passed from store to store three times before being bought by people who knew nothing about caring for these birds. Petco staff don’t screen or educate buyers—whoever has the cash can buy a bird. When the lonely bird screamed for attention, his new “family” put him into a box in a closet. After six months, he ended up with another family, who in turn gave him to yet another. By the time he was rescued by Foster Parrots, a Massachusetts bird sanctuary, both his wings had been broken and he was terrified of being left alone in a lighted room. He is still being rehabilitated by the sanctuary’s caring staff.
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FILTHY
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Non-native lizards are frequently placed in small cages that aren’t properly heated and fed diets completely foreign to them. They sicken slowly and die little by little each day. Tiny hamsters and mice, who easily fall ill, are often sick when they are bought and die soon after.
Since the very first Petco complaint was called into our Domestic Animal Issues office three years ago, PETA staff have filed reports with local law enforcement agencies. We have also urged Petco, at a bare minimum, to train its employees, to provide veterinary care for birds and all animals in its care and to screen buyers. Yet, conditions at Petco have worsened. Now we’re demanding that the chain stop selling animals altogether. Please join us in the fight to stop this abuse.
The appalling catalog of abuse includes regular discovery of dead and dying animals in Petco’s stores.
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DISEASE
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Parrots Never “at Home” With People Many parrots sold in stores come from the jungle, torn from friends and family—giant flocks that gather to chat together in the evenings, filling the trees with tales of their day’s adventures and antics before they settle down safely together for the night. They preen each other, fly together, play and share egg-incubation duties. They are never alone, and if separated even for a moment, they call wildly to their flockmates.
Yet in our world, they are usually put into a cage all alone, sometimes for decades. Denied companionship and the opportunity to fly, they can become neurotic and self-destructive, pulling out their own feathers or incessantly bobbing their heads. Singer James Taylor rescued a cockatoo from a hotel that had kept the bird in a linen cupboard for years. The bird had pulled out his lovely cream-colored feathers and was so disturbed that he couldn’t stop weaving back and forth. Mr. Taylor brought him to PETA, where, for the first time in years, he could stretch his wings, rest in the sunshine and enjoy the company of other birds.
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Let’s Get Busy!
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 • Write to:
Brian K. Devine, CEO
Petco Animal Supplies, Inc.
9125 Recho Rd.
San Diego, CA 92121
Ask him to stop the selling of birds and other animals in Petco stores, and tell him that you won’t be buying supplies at Petco until the suffering stops.
• Order our new Petno bumpersticker to educate others (call 1-800-483-4366 to order).
• For more information, please visit www.HelpingAnimals.com.
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