PetCo being Sued for Poor Animal Care

[MattM]

From the San Jose Mercury News (http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/3501546.htm)

San Francisco sues Petco over poorly cared for animals

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The city has sued the Petco Animal Supplies Inc. for allegedly keeping dead or poorly cared for animals on the shelves at two San Francisco locations.

In a suit filed Tuesday in San Francisco, city attorney Dennis Herrera said inspectors and customers found sick and dead birds, a dead moldy turtle and ``cooked'' toad at the two Petco locations.

Herrera is seeking a court order blocking Petco stores from selling animals in the city.

``What was most disturbing was the fact that the cruelty and pattern of brazen violations of San Francisco health and safety standards continued over three years,'' Herrera said.

Animal Care and Control Capt. Vicky Guldbech said one of the city's Petco stores occasionally has dead animals in display cases and cages. She conducted the store inspections and blamed many of the store's alleged shortcomings on an untrained staff.

``The kids who worked there didn't know the light fixtures (to warm the reptile cages) were turned off, or how to turn them on. The didn't know how old the food was in the cages,'' Guldbech said. ``They are untrained young adults who don't know animal husbandry.''

A Petco spokesman said he was surprised by the city's lawsuit since the company's regional managers regularly visit stores to perform spot inspections.

``So I would think if a store was cited for something, it would come up the chain, and we would have some knowledge about it,'' he said.

Petco employees reported to city animal control officials that a Bryant Street location Petco store manager ordered them to place dying animals in the freezer.

At the Sloat Boulevard Petco store, city animal officers seized three iguanas and two sickly chameleons. The iguanas were dehydrated and had to be euthanized.

A customer who had visited the Bryant Street store reported toads had ``cooked to death'' on heated floors of their enclosures which contained no water.

San Diego-based Petco is one of the nation's largest pet supply retailers.

 

[MattM]

P.S., In Pet Age magazine (an industry pub) an article covering this item included the following:

"Other animal control officers reported that dead fish were commonly found floating in tanks, sick animals were not properly quarantined and dead animals, stored in a freezer, were not disposed of properly"

 

[clwnphish]

Its about time. Everyonce in a while Il stop and see a nice store and knowledgeable staff, but that is a very rare occasion

 

[danmhippo]

I expect some other city will follow in.

 

[wombat1]

I used to work in the aquatics dept at Petco. We had a softshell turtle with a grape sized cyst in its neck. A vet student would come in about once a week and tell me how easy it would be to remove it before it became infected and that we should take care of it ASAP. My bosses did nothing. They had bubble corals and sebae anemones onder NO lights and their filter system was a joke. My boss knew nothing about fish or ho to take care of them, he just needed to keep them alive long enough to sell them. I quit after a month, and I'll never buy a fish or coral there again.

 

[NaCl-H2O]

If you've spent much time in many PetCos, this would not only be expected but over due.

 

[aquarist=broke]

The Petco's hear in Tucson all suck. The one near my house has really bad water quality and can't keep any snails(they all die) or live rock. They also try to keep those flame scallops(I think that's what they are called) and crabs, and shrimp. After a few days, they're dead or near dead, and the fish... They almost always have ragged fins and I'd say about 50% of them are doing the see-saw between life and death. I offered to save some Mushroom polyps that were in serious trouble on some live rock. They said they're fine. Yeah, if you never saw a healthier mushroom, you'd never know.

I do, however, spend money there occasionally. :roll:

 

[dizzy]

I do, however, spend money there occasionally. :roll:

[/quote]

Poor Boy your last statement pretty well sums up the problem. People act like they care until it comes to spending their money, then they go to the cheapest place. People come into my store all the time complaining about Petco, but they still go there to buy. Go figure.

 

[MandarinFish]

They fire all their knowledgable fish and reef staff who are trying hard to maintain their animals' health because they get mad when idiot co-workers mess up the tanks without thinking or knowing what they are doing.

PetCo also keeps a minimum list of animals they will always have in their tanks, including gold-rim tangs which are always dead or dying, no matter what.

The good fish keepers are checkmated at every corner on ordering too, as they are not allowed to order from any source other than the terrible two that send them tons of DOA's.

One store had a large, magnificent yellow tang that was kept with predators only. It was all skin and bones because they weren't feeding it seaweed or lettuce or anything. Just meat evidently, and it probably couldn't even compete for that with the triggers... It was really, really sad. I wanted to rescue it but couldn't bring myself to pay them for their awful animal abuse.

Terrible.

Never giving them my money again.

Boycott this criminal place.

 

[wombat1]

8O 8O 8O Did I read that right? I don't know if stealing from them will help anything!

 

[MandarinFish]

they won't miss what I was going to pay for. :evil:

Evidently nothing else works with them either.

I had Jane's Addictions' remix of 'Been Caught Stealing' in my head as I angrily walked out. Kinda funny to me at the time.

I don't make a habit of it either, and I'm not proud - haven't done it to anyone else before or since; and I'm very generous and good to my legitimate local LFS. But I was seriously pissed at PetCo that day... I was fed up.

Boycotting and lawsuits are the only things the company will respond to.

I personally hope they go out of business.

A few small LFS have tanks of death.

PetCo is the industrial warehouse store of animal death.

 

[aquarist=broke]

Well, I could've said that "I NEVER buy from the cheapest", but then what's the point of being here.

I just want to be honest, even if:
7. I make quick decisions without thinking enough about their possible bad results. (from the sump)

To also be fair, they carry more of the things that I need than LFS or the substandard ones have. Kent Marine Kalk, Nature's Ocean Bio-active Live Sand, rigid airline tubing are a few, for example. If I wasn't so broke, I wouldn't mind paying three or four times as much at the Best LFS in town, but to be realistic, if I did that, then my fish would probably be in a smaller tank, with less lighting, thinner sandbed, fewer rocks, with a lot less attention.
Here is my pie chart for this year of aquarium purchases.....

 

[MandarinFish]

You can save more by mail order.

And not reward the tanks of death at the same time....

 

[aquarist=broke]

How do I know which mail-order places are not death trap type places???

I wouldn't mind M.O. even if it was a bit expensive, but my schedule is M-Sunday 8-5 or later. I always seem to miss the FedEx, USPS, and UPS person that comes to drop things off. What's the procedure for living animals and deliveries?

 

[dizzy]

Well, I could've said that "I NEVER buy from the cheapest", but then what's the point of being here.

I just want to be honest, even if:
7. I make quick decisions without thinking enough about their possible bad results. (from the sump)

To also be fair, they carry more of the things that I need than LFS or the substandard ones have. Kent Marine Kalk, Nature's Ocean Bio-active Live Sand, rigid airline tubing are a few, for example. If I wasn't so broke, I wouldn't mind paying three or four times as much at the Best LFS in town, but to be realistic, if I did that, then my fish would probably be in a smaller tank, with less lighting, thinner sandbed, fewer rocks, with a lot less attention.
Here is my pie chart for this year of aquarium purchases.....

Poor Boy,

I like the pie chart and I like the fact you support your local stores. Kalkwasser is pretty much just calcium hydroxide. Most all aquarium companies are buying it from a chemical supply house and just repackaging.(there are different grades but I think less pure forms are ok for aquariums ) The bioactive sand is pretty much just a marketing rip-off, but it is clean to add to aquariums. A lot of the mail order places have there faults too, but they are too far too see. I was just mucking with you about the Petco support.

 

[saltcritter]

:roll:

Petco was a pet store!!!!!

I stoped in one a long time ago and Laughed at there care of anything.

There Operation is a cattle drive a best.

If you are a true Reef person and or a Real careing pet person, you would have seen the cattle drive and ran for the hills.

The ONLY good that comes out of there is the Newbee teenager trying to learn how to work and getting a good lesson in showing up to work and besides that, the Petco group is a Criminal/Legal operation to fraud people of true healthy animals.

I agree with the person that said, GO MAIL ORDER!!.
Even if you have to pay a little more for shipping, you are better off.

I talked to a young guy at the LFS and he is the 18-19 yr type of guy that is VERY! smart about fish and all, giving me info that not any ordinary chap would know. He told me not to buy there becasue he said they dose there tanks with lots of Meds untill the customer get the fish and then who cares , they sold the product even if they have to give you a few more that die as well. It's all in the numbers and they count on selling you chump fish and after they die, they just replace them for you.

Cattle company's all of them warehouse type of operations. The only thing they should sell is sand and filter floss, cat food and dog food. :wink:

I do think CA overblows everything and MOST!!! of the CA people need to be tweek'd themselves.
There Bubble is shown with the Electric Debockle. What other state would screw there own over electric?

NONE!!!!!! 8O

 

[punk_kid]

I am 17 years old and have been keeping a fish only tank for almost 2 years and am converting it to a 30 gallon mini reef. when I first started keeping saltwater fish Petco was the only shop that carried saltwater fish in my part of washington. 90% of the time the people who worked their knew nothing about saltwater fish and knew barely anything about freshwater fish. It is pretty sad when a 16 year old kid who has only been keeping fish in general for barely over 1.5 years and salwater for 1 year knows much more than these people who have been keeping fish for over 10 years. And whats even worse is that when someone who actually knows what they are doing gets hired there they either get fired for "waisting" money on maintaining the tanks or they quite because of all the crap that petco pulls and how much they make their fish suffer just to make the precious dollar. well I am glad to say that their is now a marine specialty shop that one of the people who actually knew what he was talking about at petco works there and their fish are healthy and the advice they give is practical and they don't scam you like petco does and better yet they have a 24 hour gaurantee. What i'm trying to say is don't buy from Petco unless your local petco isn't as evil as all the others are and it is worth giving a few dollars extra to your local aquarium shop than to an evil corperation that does not even think twice about the wellbeing of their animals as long as they can make a profit.

 

[tanzy]

I suppose most of you have never seen the repackaging and holding facilities of the exporters here in Singapore where they tranship the coral and fish all over the world. Most of the stuff imported are from Philipines and Indonesia. It's mess! The place stinks of dead everything, rats running around, flies everywhere and dead fish drifiting around in the tanks. Corals are taken out of the filty tanks and packaged with NSW from another tank, no acclimatisation is done since it's such a big operation. Now I wonder why you guys get tons of DOA. :roll:

Saltcritter,
Just off the topic, your typing and english are cleaning up. I can see the effort, although there are still errors. Keep up the good work! It makes it so much more pleasant to read. At least it doesn't put people off halfway and just stop reading. :wink: Good language helps convey your message better. I'm sure that's why you even bother being on this board. You go Bro! 8)

 

[Luis]

GOODDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P***O stinks, I stoped buying there long time ago, the staff doesn't know anything about animal care, I know there are some rare exceptions but 99% percent of the people that is working there did not know anything about animals and they don't care. Always you can find dead fish in their tanks. It's good to know about this lawsuit, it makes me happy.

I tried to find a good fish store time ago and I found some very good stores; their fish and corals are healthy(try to find a place where either the owner or the staff demonstrate to love animals, it's easy to find it out) maybe it's going to be further from home but an animal life is worth it. I guess sometimes a fish die there but is not like P***O.

P***O is like a fish graveyard. Please stop buying there! if you're buying there you are supporting them to kill more animals.

 

[SPC]

I MO any dry goods and live stock that I can't find at my LFS.

Posted by aquarist = broke:

How do I know which mail-order places are not death trap type places???

You can ask right here on this board, or do a search and you will find many MO places that come highly recommended.

Steve