I was at my local Petsmart today checkin out some tank prices when I noticed a single White's Tree frog in a little Five gallon with a heat lamp on it and no water any where in it's tank. Now I'm not some psycho PETA guy(not that there is anything wrong with that. Caring for animals is cool) I brought it to the attention of the managers. I told them that I was a concerned frog geek and that i've been keeping frogs and other amphibs for years and didn't think it was such a hot( hehe a pun) idea to use a heat lamp to heat the tanks,as they will quickly dry out a five gallon screen top tank. They assured me that "corporate" had guidlines for them to follow and that, in fact, there was a new habitat in the works for the frogs. they said the new habitat would prolly be Too humid?! whatever. Needles to say I'll only shop at other more reputable pet stores.
Thanks for reading.
Peace.
E
yeah you'll get that a lot with "chain" stores.
unfourtunatly I have seen the same sort of thing with darts, last week i was in the local pet store (brand new very clean and ogranized)
and saw a 10 gal tank on the counter so went to have a closer look and they had darts (tinc's and 1 auratus). the onely problem was this they had a screen lid on the tank and savanah reptile bedding the stuff made for bearded dragons and other desert type reptiles! I aske what they were feeding (whilst pointing out the tank was far too dry and that it would be a good idea to put them on some peat or simalar stuff)
so the guy showed me the crickets he was trying to feed and they were way over pin heads (these were froglets and i told him they needed ff's at wich point he asked me were to get them! I tell you if i had the 300 bucks it would have cost to get those frogs out of there i would have done (I have a bay she needed dipars and baby stuff)
this really frustrated me to the point a i bored my wife to sleep :roll:
I used to be the reptile specialist for the petco in New Orleans a few months ago. It's true that they have to make the tanks exactly as corporate wants or they get written up. I had the same problem with them. They actually tried to tell me that corporate did research on all the needs for each animal they have and that they were given proper care. I told them that they were wrong and there should never be a heat lamp with an amphibian because it would dry them out and create uneven temps in the vivarium. In general it is not good to buy your animals from chain pet stores anyway, you usually have some inexperienced kid working part time trying to take care of the animals. They are trained with very general info and usually they do not know much of anything useful. When I left because I moved to Los Angeles my friends at home said that all of my animals in my section started dying off and all of my tanks looked like crap. I guess thats what you get when hiring a high school kid for minimum wage.
Yeah i didn't expect much from them and I've never bought any animals from them except a coupla fish here and there. But you'd think they'd have at least a little bit of a clue. It's not hard to set up a simple Amphibian room. i've seen plenty other smaller petshops do it. It's not like they sell but a coupla a frogs her and ther anyway. I'd rather see them not sell any than sell them under those conditions. It gives other customers the wrong idea of how tocare for certain critters plus I know they make all thier money on accesories and food and medicine. Iv'e seen the PETA websites about Petco and the mistreatment of the such critters and now I see what they mean. It just seems they should leaev that aspect up to the more capable pet traders.
With all of the info out there so easily accesable, there really is no excuse for such ignorance. Especially if youre running a pet store!
