It was pouring rain here today, so I took the bus to the mall with my little son to get some excercise, and I stopped in the pet shop while I was there. Bad idea. They had just gotten in a new shipment of animals from the looks of things. This is the kind of place that encourages puppy mills. They keep the puppies in plastic boxes along the wall, and charge absolutely outragous prices for them, especially since most of them are not purebreds. How the puppies get enough fresh air in those plastic boxes is beyond me. Anyways, so I went into the fish/reptile/amphibian section. This is the only pet store in the city (even though this is the capital city of Alberta) that carries a good variety of herps, so I thought I'd see what they had. The first thing I saw was this big 'paludrium' that had been made in a huge bowfront tank. The water was actually separated from the land by a piece of glass, which I thought could be a good idea. The plants were lovely. The kind that never fade, you know what I mean. Yep, plastic. Anyways, I understand that some people need to sterilize everything and aren't good with real plants, but the thing that really got me were the frogs they had gotten in. There were a few I've never heard of, a PacMan, a fire-belly toad (whose enclosure had almost no water), and a 'blue poinson dart frog' and a 'green and black poison dart frog.' Yes, that is how their tank was labelled. And yes, they were both in the same tank, and from the sound of things, there was one of each. Hello!! Why get animals that you don't know jack about? I mean really, if you don't even know the proper names of two of the most common PDFs, what are you going to tell people who want to buy them? Their tank was only at 70% humidity because it had a screen top, not a glass one, and the substrate was dry moss. Lovely. On top of all that, they were feeding them crickets. Yes, crickets. They were small crickets, but not small enough for a PDF! Stupid people. . . that makes me so mad! I really wanted to tell someone off, but I know it's probably not the sales girl's fault that the owners/managers of the store set things up the way they did, or even that such animals were brought in in the first place. Oh, they were also selling them for $130 each. Oh goodie, can I please pay way too much for a frog that will probably die a few days after I bring it home from malnutrition and terrible living conditions? Seriously, WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. . . I will make a point of it to never buy from that store again (I bought my 'sphagnum' (NOT) moss for my terrarium there) as long as I live. I would like to do more, though. Does anyone have any ideas? This place sells books on how to take care of the animals, so they really should know better. I think they really don't care. Is there anything one can do in this situation? I don't think a tersely worded letter to the owner would do any good at all. And thank you all for letting me vent and being so understanding. =)
alexis
mrbreeze
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alexis
sahoyarefOriginal Author
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