PETA Calls On PetSmart to Stop Buying Animals From Suppliers That Break the Law

Shareholder Resolution Follows Seizure of 27,000 Animals From an Exotic-Pets Wholesaler in Texas

For Immediate Release:
January 7, 2010

Contact:
Robbyn Brooks 757-622-7382

Phoenix -- PETA, which owns stock in PetSmart, has submitted a shareholder resolution calling on the Phoenix-based company to require its suppliers to stop buying animals from distributors that have violated or are under investigation for violating the law. PETA filed the resolution after authorities in Arlington, Texas, won custody this month of more than 27,000 animals who had been confiscated from U.S. Global Exotics--a wholesale dealer that sells animals to PetSmart suppliers. A PETA undercover investigation of the facility in 2009 revealed that countless animals have been suffering from systemic neglect, often resulting in painful living conditions and lingering deaths. PetSmart operates more than 1,000 stores in the U.S. and Canada, and its 2009 sales exceeded $5 billion.

The following are just some of the PETA investigator's findings:

* Hamsters, gerbils, hedgehogs, chinchillas, ferrets, frogs, and other animals were cruelly confined to soda bottles, cattle-feeding troughs, litter pans, and tiny, severely crowded cages. Countless animals were denied even basic necessities such as food, water, space, and heat. 
* Sick and injured animals--including a squirrel with a severely lacerated neck and a chinchilla with a prolapsed rectum--were routinely put into freezers to die a slow, painful death.
* Most animals were caught in the wild and were sometimes kept for weeks in pillowcases, shipping boxes, or even 2-liter soda bottles without food, water, light, heat, or humidity.
* When asked for guidance on caring for red-tail boa snakes--dozens of whom had died--a former supervisor replied, "Let them die. They're garbage."
* Iguanas and other lizards were not unpacked upon arrival and perished by the hundreds inside mesh bags and "shipping cups." At least 12,000 turtles sat boxed up for weeks, deprived of food, water, light, and adequate ventilation. In one day, 657 turtles were recorded on the facility's dead list.
* Many animals were confined for so long that they resorted to stress-induced behavior such as cannibalism, incessant pacing, frantic clawing, and fighting.

"Even before they arrive at the store, life is a living hell for small and exotic animals who wind up at PetSmart," says PETA Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. "If shareholders want to safeguard their investments, they must demand that PetSmart sever all ties with any suppliers that violate animal protection laws."

A copy of PETA's shareholder resolution is available upon request. For more information, please visit PETA's Web site PetSmartCruelty.com.