Petco Supplier Torturing Animals
PETA has recently reported on the cruel and senseless treatment of animals at Holmes Farm, a Pennsylvania animal mill that supplies small mammals to hundres of pet stores across eastern U.S. They are calling on everyone to boycott Petco, Petsmart, and affiliated stores, particularly due to their blatant lies about their knowledge and involvement. From their graphic post:
Based on PETA’s evidence, a team of U.S. Department of Agriculture officials descended on Holmes Farm, which is now under federal investigation. And then we caught Petco in a big fat lie to the press. Petco’s convenient January 19, 2016, claim that the company severed ties with Holmes Farm before it was notified of PETA’s findings by the Associated Press flies in the face of factual information. For more than an entire month after Petco’s December 2, 2015, visit to Holmes Farm—during which representatives of the retailer were never seen looking at the filthy cooler where hundreds of animals were crudely killed or the freezer where others died slowly, among other things—Petco stores were ordering and receiving animals by the hundreds from Holmes Farm, even as the USDA began its inspection!
The animals—thousands of whom had already been subjected to a grueling overseas trip in shipping crates—were confined to crowded bins or cages in Holmes Farm’s filthy, windowless warehouses. The buildings reeked of urine and feces, and one building’s floor was spattered with blood where helpless prey animals had apparently been attacked by cats, who were allowed to roam freely throughout the facility, regularly jumping in and out of the bins. Onehamster who had been attacked by a cat was just left to flail and die on the floor.
PETA is calling for supporters to sign their petition and pledge to shop elsewhere until Petco stops all animal sales. Please review their site and consider signing their pledge.
Zooh Corner severed relations with Petco nearly two years ago due their continued sales of other small pets AND canned rabbit meat as pet food. We had chosen not to take it public and advocate boycott of their stores; not until now. They have placated us rescues for too long with their position that they won’t sell rabbits if rescues do adoptions in (and promote) their stores. It’s not enough; it’s hypocritical; it’s antithetical to all that Zooh Corner Rabbit Rescue stands for and promotes. And now this.
PetCo and Petsmart get a lot of support from us rescues AND a lot lot LOT of public goodwill because of all the support they give to rescues, all while selling our pets (rabbits) in cans to be fed to other people’s pets AND profiting from the suffering of the animals they sell. They are treating animals like nothing more than the products they sell, while simultaneously ADDING TO THE PROBLEM they supposedly advocate to help. Screw them. IT HAS TO STOP.
As a no-kill animal rescue, we are calling on all fellow rescues, volunteers, and friends to sever ties with Petco and Petsmart. That means no adoptions, no partnering, no buying supplies. Let these stores know that while they’re still selling ANY animals, you refuse to be a part of the horror and hypocrisy.