Cruelty in Store at PetSmart!

After PETA campaigned against PetSmart’s main competitor, PETCO, the company agreed to stop selling most large species of birds, to work with rescue groups to adopt out homeless birds, and to recommend flight cages, which are roomy enough for birds to fly in, but PetSmart has yet to take any such significant steps.

Despite numerous letters and meetings with PETA representatives, PetSmart continues to sell tens of thousands of birds and other animals every year to people who may know little to nothing about proper care. In the wild, birds preen each other, fly together, play, “talk” incessantly, and share parenting tasks. If they are separated from their flock even for a moment, they call wildly to their flockmates. But birds kept as “pets” are often confined to tiny cages, denied the companionship of other birds, and deprived of the opportunity to fly. Driven mad by loneliness and boredom, they can become neurotic and self-destructive, pulling out their feathers, incessantly screeching and bobbing their heads, pecking frantically at cage bars, and shaking or even collapsing from anxiety.

Have you ever bought a bird from PetSmart? Tell us about your experience.
Many parrots and other birds are bred in crowded, cage-filled warehouses, where they frequently live in squalor, unable even to stretch out their wings. Babies may be taken away from their mothers before they can even feed themselves. Birds are also still illegally captured in forests and smuggled out inside socks, shoes, small boxes, or even toilet paper rolls. Many die before reaching their destinations.

Customers Speak Out Against PetSmart
Customers all over the United States have reported that PetSmart is selling sick and injured animals, including guinea pigs with eye and upper respiratory infections, sick and dying betta fish, and many kinds of suffering birds, including mite-infested parakeets, a cockatoo who was screaming and bobbing up and down out of stress, an African grey parrot and a macaw who were tearing out their own feathers, and a Jardin’s parrot who was “very ill” in a “dirty cage with filthy water.”

You Can Help Stop This!
Please don’t shop at PetSmart, and demand that it stop selling birds.

Philip L. Francis, Chair and CEO
PetSmart, Inc.
19601 N. 27th Ave.
Phoenix, AZ 85027
1-888-839-9638
cs@PetSmart.com
PFrancis@PetSmart.com

Have you ever bought a bird from PetSmart? Tell us about your experience.