Update: Much-Criticized Local Exotic-Animal Auction Canceled After PETA Uproar
For Immediate Release:
March 3, 2022
Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382
The Shelby Alternative Livestock Auction scheduled for March 18 and 19 has been canceled amid a PETA protest at the Vale Veterinary Hospital. The clinic’s owners, Drs. Steven and Melissa Matthews, had planned to allow the auction to be held on other property that they own—the Cleveland County Agriculture & Livestock Exchange. Below, please find a statement from PETA Vice President Analysis Daniel Paden:
The auction’s cancellation means that no exotic animals will be kicked, whipped, or hit with poles this month at the Cleveland County Agriculture & Livestock Exchange, as PETA’s exposé of the last exotic-animal action documented. These distressing auctions are from another time, and no vets worth their salt would sign off on abusing and terrorizing vulnerable animals as was done on this site.
The action followed a damning investigation by PETA, which caught workers at last year’s exotic-animal auction on that site chasing, hitting with poles, shoving, and dragging vulnerable animals, including wallabies and coatimundis. The protesters are available for interviews.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
