Yeah, Gordan, I saw that news report about the Texas distributor for
Petsmart. When I first heard about it from PETA, I took it with a huge,
huge grain of salt because quite frankly, PETA is the perfect example
of "The Little Boy That Cried Wolf". Their past behavior of
embellishing, not getting their facts straight, and over emotionalizing
things lost them a great deal of credit in this nation and our trust.
I've noticed they've improved some. Because of the source ... I didn't
really listen. I believed them, but not to the degree the reported.
Then I saw the footage on TV. Holy crow. I went and looked at PITA"s
full footage. No way, in a million years would I have ever believed
that an entire facility engaged in such behavior let alone going to the
extent of actively torturing the animals by stepping on them, and doing
surgery on them while awake plus using clorox wipes on open wounds.
Never. PETA really out did themselves putting someone undercover for
not days but weeks (So you cant' say this was a "bad day"). The
reporting was very unemotional without adjectives, and very objective.
It was dead on.
I've always been concerned about all of these distributing warehouses
across the country. If I recall it was due to the practices of one of
these places that led to the monkey pox outbreak years ago. Sure the
rat carried it and they are not responsible for that (in as far as I
know ...) . But in no way would it have jumped species and been in
prairre dogs in pet stores had they not been so careless and haphazard
in their practices. Breeders are visited on occasion by the FDA and
concerned citizens as well as pet stores and owners. But what about the
distributors? I venture to say that although the Texas center that was
caught committing atrocious acts was extreme, many are not that far
off from this and most probably need some major improvement to say the
least. It blows me away that the large breeding farms take some care
with their facilities and even sometimes care about what pet stores
they ship to ... but could give a hoot about the middle man and what
happens to the ferrets in between that. They have no clue as to what
the conditions are in any of their distributors.
I have no doubt that one of my ferrets was mixed up from Exotic Pets.
Blacky came in with a shipment of baby ferrets to Petco from MF. He in
way resembles the typical body build of a MF ferret and has a vicious
disposition towards other animals which is not typical of a well
adjusted baby MF ferret. He has NO tats. I called MF and told them
about this immediately (also there were no papers, they gave me old
papers at the pet store that they forgot to give another customer from
a previous shipment months ago), and they said that once in a while
a ferret does slip through without tats, although lacking both ear
tats plus a toe tat was unusual. The lack of papers was also quite a
coincidence. I was honest and said I didnt' think he was theirs and I
thought they should know. They said that although this happened, they
would take responsibility for him. They said if he needed any immediate
vetting, etc, they'd pay. I thanked them but told them that I wasn't
concerned about warrantee issues Still, I really think they missed the
whole point. I have called them about questions regarding Exotic before
many years ago, but I forget why. For some reason,I had questions about
that facility. On that occasion they were very evasive, uninformed
and really uncaring about distributors. They were more than obliging
personally and open to discussion about themselves and the pet store
that carried their ferrets.
Are these places monitored by the FDA, and if so how much compared to
large breeding farms and pet stores? If I recall, in the old days, they
were not under supervision at all.
[Posted in FML 5862]
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