Ahhhhh! FRIGGIN PET STORES!

[Eddie_Z]

I was back home in the Buffalo area last weekend & went into the McKinley Mall. They have a pet store in their called Pet World. Well, when I went in there, I jetted for the exotics. The first tank I came to was a gorgeous, firey red lizard (in all my anger now, I don't even remember what it was). His tank was clean, he was healthy & vibrant! Then, it all went to hell! My future brother-in-law (who is also my best friend) literally dragged me outta the store before I could say anything because as he put it "Dude, I really don't feel like watchin you leave in a squad car & then having to bail you out of jail. There is absolutely no way that you are not going to explode on these people, i am getting you outta here now!"

What follows is email correspondence I have had thus far with the Animal Advocates of Western New York & I wanted to share it with all of you. I also wondered if any of you could help me out in finding regulations, by law, in terms of standards for the keeping of snakes & reptiles! Here goes. First, I sent them this email:

To Whom It May Concern:

This past weekend I visited Pet World in the McKinley Mall & I was
absolutely appalled by the condition of their exotic pets, most notably
their snakes & reptiles. The cages were full of fesces & shed skin,
many of them were in cages that were far too small for them & their living
conditions were just disgusting!

They have an absolutely gorgeous pair of California King snakes. The
larger one is in a tank that is far too small for her, niether of the
king snakes had any hide boxes at all, both had fesces in their tanks as
well as left over shed skin.

Their Ball Pythons were situated two in one cage which is bad for a
variety of reasons & they also did not have any hide boxes. Ball
Pythons are the most timid & shy snake in the world & those two snakes have got to be stressed beyond belief right now with no place to hide. The tank that they were in is also too small for probably both of them individually but certainly for the larger one. Many of the water bowls in their snake
tanks (snakes of all kinds) had little or no water in them & it was clear
that the water was nowhere near fresh.

Their Bearded Dragons had water bowls that were almost empty &
because of the sandy substrate that was being used, the water bowls were caked with a muddy or clay like substance. It was clear that not only were they lacking clean & fresh water but that it had not been changed in at least a week if not longer. The lizards (again, all kinds) also had fesces & shed skin
in their tanks.

In all of their herp's tanks I saw absolutely no evidence of measuring the
temperatures or humidity, two things that are vital to keeping any
snake or lizard! All in all, I had to force myself to leave the store because if
I were to unleash the rage that I was feeling on the people in the store,
I may have found myself in the back of a squad car. If you are not
willing to care for your exotic animals properly, you simply should not keep them at all.

I truly appreciate all of the hard work that you folks do & I sincerely hope that you will look into this very closely & demand some concrete answers as well as some immediate changes. I would be more than happy to forward them complete & detailed care sheets for any exotic pet that they might have. I would also greatly appreciate it if you were to keep me up to
date on what might be happening to change this very unfortunate situation.
Thank you for your time, have a wonderful day.

Regards,
Eddie Zyglis

After four days, someone got back to me. This was the email I got from them:

Dear Eddie,

Thank you for writing and describing what you recently observed at Pet
World in the McKinley Mall. We appreciate your sharing your concerns with
us regarding this matter. Over the years, that store has been the source
of a great deal of dismay and frustration for members of our organization as
well as other people in the Western New York community who love animals.
Unfortunately, as far as I can recall, it's always been a real challenge
(i.e., impossible) to have anything done about such situations at that
place. We have encouraged concerned individuals to contact the police
and/or the SPCA about Pet World (and other stores), but to the best of
my knowledge it usually turns out that the store is not in violation of
any regulations, so no action takes place. It sounds like you are an
expert on exotic animal care. If you are aware of any regulations concerning the keeping and care of snakes and reptiles, perhaps it would be helpful if
you did forward them the information you have. In the meantime, I will see
if one of our members in the southtowns can stop by the store and check
things out. Also, I will make a note of this matter for discussion at our
upcoming Board meeting. Let's keep each other posted on this situation.

Thanks again,

Randy Atlas
President,
Animal Advocates of Western New York

So, I sent him this letter this morning:

Randy,

I appreciate you getting back to me on the issue of the exotic pets at Pet World. I am not an expert by any means on the care of exotics so I am not certain as to what the standards & regulations are regarding their care by the letter of the law. I am simply very passionate about them and because of this I have done a lot of research on their care. I have a large wish list of herps that I would love to one day own but I am not in position at this point to properly care for them. I am also the type of person to research the care of an animal before I decide to purchase it so that i know what kind of money I will need to care for the animal and what kinds of time commitments I am going to need to make. Unfortunately I feel as though I am in a vast minority in handling pet purchases this way.

At any rate, anything that you can do would be fantastic. I have been to stores (mostly in the Rochester area as I currently reside in Brockport but have much family in the Buffalo area where I grew up) and I have seen the condition in which these places tend to keep their exotic pets. Most places do not do a very good job of it at all. However, it is such a rapidly growing market that they don't care to take the time to learn. They can get large shipments of these beautiful creatures in and, if they care improperly for them and lose a few, it won't hurt because they price gouge the animals that are alive and make more than a profit. However, Pet World is the worst that I have seen to this point.

For my part, I will be contacting the SPCA in the Buffalo area in hopes that they might be able to help in this fight. I am also going to do some research in the hopes that I can find out if there are, indeed, any regulations in regards to the keeping of snakes & reptiles.

Some very basic things that you can bring up at the meeting (if you don't mind my suggesting so) are facts that are vital just to basic care for a snake or reptile.

1) As with ANY pet at all, you don't want them in a tank full of their own fesces. This can lead to all sorts of diseases and problems. In the case of snakes, they are even more suseptible to diseases related to unsanitary conditions because their lung runs along the bottom of their body.

2) All snakes & reptiles need the very basic necessity of clean, fresh water daily. Again, this is true for any animal.

3) All snakes & reptiles need to have their temperatures & humidity levels closely monitored with proper digital monitoring equipment. This does not have to be expensive equipment. You can get a high quality combination temperature/humidty gauge for 12 or 15 dollars at walmart. Their needs to be, for all of these creatures, a certain level of humidity maintained (this varies by species of snake & reptile based on what part of the world to which they are native) and they also need to have some sort of temperature gradient. There should be a warm side of the tank for them to bask in & a cooler side. These creatures are cold blooded & they need the gradient to thermo-regulate their bodies. (The temps also vary on native land)

4) All snakes & reptiles need to have a tight, dark hiding area. The preference is at least two, one on each end of the temperature gradient so that they can feel secure while they thermo-regulate. Anytime a snake or reptile does not have the option to hide in a secure, dark place, this causes intense stress on them. Not only will this make them more difficult to sell because once stressed they become far more likely to be aggressive (which is nothing but a self defense mechanism) but it causes their immune systems to break down badly and opens them up even more to sickness & it will also often cause them to refuse any food.

These are four very basic premises and I bring them up because they either flat out did not exist or were very much insufficient in the housing set ups at Pet World. And again, this was just something I wanted to bring up to give you some extra info for your meeting. All of these things are very readily available on the internet & very easy to locate using any of the many search engines available on today's world wide web. For detailed care sheets on almost any snake or reptile that is legal for keeping, you can also visit www.ball-pythons.net.

Thank you again for your response and, as you said, we should keep each other up to date on any progress we might make. I will contact you after I speak with the SPCA as I hope that you will contact me after your board meeting. Thank you again for your time Randy.

Regards,

Ed Zyglis

It just PEEVES me so badly that a store can be known to suck & still be allowed to carry on because "technically speaking" they are not doing anything wrong! What other steps can I take to right this problem!!??

[ddbjdealer]

It would be awesome to see any updates you get from this guy in the future, as well as any action taken by the SPCA. It'd also be really cool to see this show up on one of the Animal Cops episodes on AP!

[Ginevive]

Hey; I have been to that store numerous times. Their reptile care is definately lacking. Their taking ten minutes everyday to simply clean out the cages would be so hard...? and there's no excuse for keeping their snakes in such small cages, when they obviously could afford to buy larger tanks at cost! Another thing I despise about it, is how they sell puppies; can anyone say "puppy mill?" That store is what I call a "relic" from the past; go to a store like Markheim, and that's what I'd call the future of successful pet stores. That is, if customers wake up and realize, they are supporting a crappy store..
I am glad you did something about it. I went to another horrid place in the Buffalo area; Blue Lagoon. They had hideous amounts of lizards (baby iggies) in one 20l tank with a crappy heatlamp on a screen lid; the lizards could not even stand there without being on top of three or four of their cagemates. No water either! Then they had ball pythons in similar sized tanks, three or more to a tank, piled together above a tiny heatpad with no rheostat. Nothing to hide under either, and no water!I filed a complaint with the Better Business bureau, and it will supposedly stay on file in case anyone wishes to check it out; but then again, what average joe, stopping into a store to buy his kid a pet, does that? Ugh...

[Eddie_Z]

Ginny, unfortunately even though I tried to do something about it, I had not gotten any help! I have not been able to get in touch with anyone at the SPCA. Hopefully this changes soon.

Blue Lagoon, is that in Lockport? The last time I was at Markheims (and this was a few months ago) the kid who works a lot with the snakes & reptiles (by the way, have they finally split some of their beardies up a little bit? That Beardie stud they have is like a damn jackrabbit!) was tellin me about some place in Lockport that is just awful. I guess they have (had?) a caiman & a couple of condas & a couple burms even after the new laws past. Dangit, I just wish there were justice for all animals, not just the cuddly & fuzzy ones!

[Eddie_Z]

And for the matter of the Animal Advocates & SPCA & stuff not being able to site them for any violations in the past, does it matter what kind of animal you are selling? I mean, isn't allowing an animal to sit in their own fecal matter grounds for cruelty regardless of what kind? Isn't depriving them of water to drink also the same? I am so confused!! What do the laws read?

[frankykeno]

Ed, here's a link I have that shows pet stores rules by state. It looks like unfortunately humane treatment in a lot of states only refers to dog and cats, not reptiles or other pets kept badly in a pet store. Hope it helps somewhat tho.

http://www.api4animals.org/1071.htm

If there's no law they are breaking, perhaps a quiet phone call to a local paper might be in order. The power of the press is fairly big and a story about a pet store with silently suffering reptiles might be of some interest to them. That can backfire tho as most people don't care anyways and probably don't want any snake sold in their city anyways.

Doesn't New York have some pretty strigent rules about snakes?


~~Jo~~

[Eddie_Z]

New York just adopted some very strict rules about snake keeping, yes. They mostly refer to our much larger friends though. Thank you for the link, i will look it over when i wake up or when I get home from work tomorrow morning. (Workin overnites, booooo) At this point I am mulling over my options. Hopefully i can figure out some way to make some changes!

[Ginevive]

No; this Blue Lagoon is, I believe, in Cheektowaga.. somewhere around Harlem Rd. area. You could find it in a Buffalo phone book.
I have been to Pets Plus in Lockport, and I was not completely happy with their reptile setups. They have alot of herps; a few burms, one giant retic, and a couple of big boas, as well as a huge anaconda. Tons of lizards and smaller snakes too. But their setups were all kinda messy when I was there; dried feces scattered through the cypress substrate, which looked pretty old. It was not completely bad; their smaller snakes like the BPs had hides, and everyone seemed to have fresh water. I can't really comment on their lizard setups, since I know nothing about those; their beardies did look to be caged in a nice big clean cage though. My opinion is, they have too many herps there to take care of, and things are not spotless. Their fish selection is really great though; they have some killer saltwater tanks and I got most of my african cichlids there; all of them are healthy.