possible Petco letter.........

[Michael7979]

Dear Sirs,

I am a member of a local saltwater club and a hobbist. I belong to the Pacific Northwest Marine Aquarium Society based in the Willamette Valley of Oregon and southwest Washington. Our goal is to help spread the word of proper care and management of saltwater/reef inhabitants.

I would like to bring to your attention and few things about your companys saltwaterfish department. On more then one occasion I have been in your stores and seen dead and/or sick fish. Fish housed with other fish that are not compatible with each other. Fish that are housed in unclean tanks. Fish that are housed in tanks that are not set-up to handle their needed requirements, such as anemones.

I have tried to bring certain things to associates attention when I have noticed them. I ususally get, "I'll bring it to my managers attention." But the problems are always there visit after visit. Things never change.

I am bringing this to your attention in hopes that maybe you will set these things right. Hopefully your company will spend the time and energy to train your employees in the right way to house and care for these delicate marine creatures.

Until these bad practices are corrected I will not purchase any saltwater fish/invertabrate from your store. I will also tell others to shop elsewhere as buying sick/stressed fish is a bad practice to start.

These animals are delicate and need to be taken care of properly. They are not a dry good item, they are a living animal!

 

Thank you for your time and for reading this letter.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is something if the club wants to write the PETCO Corparation.

Please feel free to re-write what ever you think is too 'weird'. Or throw it out all together. thought I'd throw something together since it was brought up.

[Michael7979]

For those that don't know what started this.

Please read the "petco has clams" thread. Writing a letter to PetCo was brought up.

[CA2OR]

I think you may want to find out if PNWMAS wants their name in this. OK just wanted to say that. You could also mention that you see time and time again people posting thier displeasure with Petco on sites and forums such as this. You may also consider getting Reef Central involved due to their popularity.

[CA2OR]

I am in though. Dont take that last message wrong.

(drinking)

[Michael7979]

It is just a jumping off point.

If the club wants to use it they can.

I'm going to leave it up to the BOD first.

 

If someone wants to use it as a form letter they can.

[CA2OR]

ah...DOH!...of course. Sorry. I dont always think things through.(nutty)(violin)

[downhill_biker]

I started a major thread on Reef Central about this that went some 30 pages long and had a petition that everyone was able to electronically sign. It was submitted to Petco with no success. We had several hundred signatures of people that have first hand experience with the poor practices of Petco. I think this is a great idea, but probably just a bunch of wasted time. The only thing you can do is not buy there, and spread the word. If saltwater becomes less profitable they may try to drop it. Sorry to be negative about this, but I have already been through this before, in MUCH larger scale.

[Michael7979]

Yeah I signed that one too.

 

Just hoping maybe a local club will have some effect. But I do know it is an uphill project.

[CA2OR]

That is really too bad. They have no respect for the loss or lack or quality of life for thier livestock and their customers.

[Lowman]

There have to be watchdog groups like PETA or someone we can get into this.

[Lowman]

Also, I would add in the letter that not only am I going to stop buying livestock, but also supplies, and food and supplies for my 6 birds, 3 dogs also.

[CCR]

I feel it must be tried, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Corporate change is based on the profit they make. we can unite the pressure with ALL reef club and then some. You really want to make an impact your going to have to lay heavily on the suppliers of products they carry, from salt to dog food. Do they want to have there products boycotted if they keep supplying there products that treat living creatures unjustly/ inhumanely. The effort need to be universal. They will listen to the suppliers. So is there that kind of support. Do the "Reefers" have that in them to unite?

[CA2OR]

yeah kinda makes you wonder...if they treat there fish like this, what is different about the dogs, cats, ferrets, etc.?

[CCR]

let's get others response

[CA2OR]

Does PETA care about fish? I hear most of these organizations only recongnize things like corals as a plant which carries no importance.

[jadams7]

Yea Petco is tough...what they do to their livestock is easily considered cruelty. It is sort of a catch 22 in that part of me wants to boycott all of their fish, and another part of me wants to try and 'save' them from what is usually imminent death. The ignorance of the employees the is rather sad, seeing as once early into the hobby for me, I asked how much a small hippo tang was, and then was corrected, being told "that is a yellow tail damsel, and they are $3.99..."

Long story short after getting it bagged up, and me being excited about 'sticking it to the man,' the cashier would not allow me to buy it because she happened to know that "dory" is not a damsel.

[CA2OR]

roflroflrofl That has got to be one of the funniest stories I have ever heard. We should start a thread over horror stories from P-co. I don't even wanna say their name anymore. I try to avoid that store as much as possible. Only go for nail clippings and ferret treats. I even try to avoid the latter of those because I have a problem with contributing to a company that has such little regard for their animals and customer satisfaction.

[dj_giantti]

I dont like Petco. I will leave it at that.

[steelhead77]

After my recent adventure (see Damsels in Distress), needless to say I will never buy another live animal from them. There are other, MUCH more reputable and friendly dealers around locally that will get all of my business from now on.

I am up to putting my name on that (or any) letter as well.

 

-Scott

[fishiefish]

yeah I get depressed when I see their stuff, and I no longer shop there. I think the letter is a great idea

[180Brandy]

Here is a food for thought... PNWMAS is in the business of education and helping others learn more about the trade I thought this might be a great idea.

 

Maybe we could set up a relationship with Petco and help them. We could have a consulting team or mentor team go in maybe twice a week or come up with a schedule to help them take better care of the live stock that comes in. In learn we get special deals for our tanks for teachers program or awards program. This way we could help them and we could promote our club.

 

Please expand on this idea if you think it sounds reasonable.

[Michael7979]

That sounds good Brandy.................

 

BUT

 

there are a lot of Petco's around and do we just help 1 or 2 or all which would really be a ton of work for someone. Just a thought. More to think about and build on.

[180Brandy]

Maybe a team from each area? We could start out just helping a few then see what happends from there.

 

 

We have to first ask the question is the club interested in this or not?

[CA2OR]

now that sounds like a good idea. I have another project I would like to see PNWMAS get involved in as well.

[slimy fish]

This is just a short account of my experiences with Petco and if any of it is useful for what you are trying to accomplish please contact me before using it. My education is in fish health and I was part of a team of researchers that worked closely with 2 Petco stores for about 6 months. Our goal was to try and provide them with documented evidence of what was killing every order of saltwater fish they received and in return we were given permission to run our own molecular tests on the fish for our research. What follows is not intended to be a slam on Petco. They were kind enough to allow us to use the fish for our research. In short, management including at the store level and corporate level, do know of the problem but have done little to correct it. They rely heavily on the advice of a Petco veterinarian who knows nothing about fish health to come up with solutions to fix the problem. They also will not, due to potential worker health problems, use any sort of chemical to treat disease outbreaks. The other problem Petco faces is the supplier of their fish. The supplier(s) treats Petco as the dumping grounds for their diseased fish, so in a sense the problem starts at the supplier and then is magnified by Petco's lack of proper husbandry. In Petco's defense, many of the diseased fish (freshwater mostly) they receive would never recover even in one of our tanks as they are infected with incurable diseases. Again this is just my experience with Petco, please take what you can out of it. Finally in my personal opinion Petco will not change their policies unless pressure comes from a legislative entity. Their are plenty of Petco stores who never make profit off their saltwater fish but continue to carry them even thou a good majority die before being sold. As one manager told me "its not the profit on the wet products they are so worried about its the profit on the dry products". Go figure. I know they have a business to run but we all know how valuable (I’m not talking monetary value) these fish and invertebrates are, it’s a shame they do not.