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For Fast Launch:
March 5, 2024
Contact:
Nicole Perreira 202-483-7382
Xenia, Ohio – After studying that domestically based mostly reptile mill Reptiles by Mack—which sells reptiles to pet shops throughout the U.S.—retains hundreds of snakes in small, barren plastic tubs with out room to totally stretch out, PETA fired off a letter in the present day to the enterprise’s founder and CEO, John Mack, calling on him to enhance circumstances for the animals at his facility and to take away the deceptive claims on the corporate’s web site stating that snakes will be housed in enclosures solely half the size of their our bodies.
Quite a few peer-reviewed research make it clear that to be as mentally and bodily wholesome as doable, snakes held in captivity should be capable of totally stretch out their our bodies—which means that they have to be housed in enclosures no less than so long as they’re—and that snakes who can’t stretch out really feel harassed and expertise numerous well being issues, together with accidents, joint illness, constipation, and weight problems.
Shelving models at Reptiles by Mack, the place hundreds of snakes are housed in tiny tubs like these. Credit score: PETA
“Confining snakes to minuscule, barren plastic bins the place they’ll’t stretch, discover, or categorical some other pure conduct is simply as merciless as maintaining cats or canine in cages so small that they’ll’t transfer comfortably, rise up, and even flip round,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “That is the fact of the pet commerce, and PETA urges everybody to not assist it and by no means to purchase any animal from a pet retailer or breeder.”
A earlier PETA investigation into Reptiles by Mack revealed that tens of hundreds of frogs, lizards, turtles, and snakes have been confined to filthy, cramped plastic tubs and disadvantaged of primary requirements, akin to recent meals, water, warmth, UV mild, and veterinary care.
PETA—whose motto reads, partially, that “animals should not ours to abuse in any means”—factors out that Each Animal Is Somebody and provides free Empathy Kits for individuals who want a lesson in kindness. For extra info, please go to PETA.org or comply with the group on X, Fb, or Instagram.
PETA’s letter to Mack follows.
March 5, 2024
John Mack
Founder and CEO
Reptiles by Mack
Expensive Mr. Mack:
I’m writing concerning the numerous snakes confined at your breeding and import warehouse. Will you decide to enhancing circumstances for these animals and finish your organization’s false declare that it’s acceptable to maintain snakes in tanks which might be simply half the animals’ size?
Your late good friend Brian Barczyk’s polished video tour of your enterprise exhibits hundreds of plastic tubs reaching practically to the ceiling in “aisle after aisle of snakes” that go “so far as the attention can see,” as Barczyk places it. The video exhibits “actually huge” snakes—as Barczyk says—crammed into these tiny tubs. Many animals are clearly for much longer than the tubs and may’t even prolong their our bodies to full size. We perceive that the snakes you employ for breeding spend their total lives in tubs like this, severely confined like canine at pet mills.
Such intense confinement causes any animal to undergo and has been implicated in irregular conduct in addition to greater than 20 ailments present in snakes stored this fashion. It’s broadly acknowledged amongst specialists—and has been for years—that habitats that permit snakes to stretch and transfer round are essential to their bodily and behavioral wants. A 2019 examine of 65 snakes discovered that lots of them assumed totally stretched-out postures inside simply an hour of statement in the course of the daytime. A 2021 examine discovered that “suggestions [of] enclosure sizes shorter than the snakes have been based mostly completely on decades-old ‘rule of thumb’ practices that have been unsupported by scientific proof” and that “[r]ectilinear conduct is regular, distinct, and customary throughout snake species, and … basic to snake well being and welfare.”
Even the care sheet produced by a pet business lobbying group—whose board of administrators you chair—states that snake enclosures “ought to present [the animal] adequate area to stretch out and transfer freely.” Why then do your organization’s “care sheets” for corn, king, and sand boa snakes advise those who these animals will be crammed into tanks simply half their size? Nobody would advocate {that a} 3-foot-long German shepherd be stored in a crate simply 18 inches lengthy. Why does Reptiles by Mack approve of and promote maintaining a 6-foot-long snake in a 3-foot-long tank?
Stretching out totally and transferring in a straight line are important to snakes’ well-being. Accordingly, PETA appears to be like ahead to your immediate affirmation that (a) your facility—one of many largest of its form on this planet—and profitable firm will give this primary alternative to the animals you breed and ship out and that (b) you may have eliminated the above false and deceptive claims out of your web site and some other supplies. Thanks on your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Daniel Paden
Vice President of Proof Evaluation
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