For Quick Launch:
March 27, 2024
Contact:
Sara Groves 202-483-7382
Norfolk, Va. – After studying that regionally based mostly reptile manufacturing facility Reptile Industries Inc.—which provides animals to retail pet shops—retains quite a few snakes in small, barren plastic tubs with out room to even lengthen their our bodies to full size, PETA fired off a letter in the present day to homeowners Mark and Kimberly Bell calling on them to maneuver the snakes at their facility into enclosures that may permit them to stretch out and transfer round freely.
Tiny plastic tubs home hundreds of snakes and different animals at Reptile Industries. Credit score: Fishbowl
A big, emaciated snake is stored in a small tub at a breeding operation. Credit score: PETA
Quite a few peer-reviewed research make it clear that to be psychologically and bodily wholesome, snakes held in captivity should be capable to totally stretch out their our bodies and that snakes who can’t stretch out really feel pressured and expertise varied well being issues, together with accidents, joint illness, constipation, and weight problems.
“At this depressing reptile mill, numerous snakes are warehoused in tiny plastic tubs the place they’ll’t stretch out, discover, or have interaction in another pure conduct,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “Reptiles undergo in these situations similar to canines in pet mills do, and PETA urges folks by no means to purchase any animal from a pet retailer or breeder.”
PETA—whose motto reads, partially, that “animals should not ours to abuse in any manner”—factors out that Each Animal Is Somebody and presents free Empathy Kits for individuals who want a lesson in kindness. For extra data, please go to PETA.org or comply with the group on X, Fb, or Instagram.
PETA’s letter to the Bells follows.
March 27, 2024
Mark S. Bell, President
Kimberly D. Bell, Vice President
Reptile Industries Inc.
Pricey Mr. and Mrs. Bell:
I’m writing concerning the numerous snakes confined to your self-professed “state-of-the-art” breeding warehouse. Will you decide to enhancing situations for these animals?
A quick video tour of your compound and a promotional video that includes it present plastic tubs reaching from the ground to the ceiling in aisle after aisle and room after room of animals. The latter video exhibits snakes crammed into these tiny tubs. These animals seem for much longer than the tubs and evidently can’t even lengthen their our bodies to full size.
PETA investigations have discovered that snakes used for breeding spend their total lives in tubs like this, severely confined like canines 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 research of 65 snakes discovered that lots of them assumed totally stretched-out postures inside simply an hour of commentary throughout the daytime. A 2021 research discovered that “suggestions [of] enclosure sizes shorter than the snakes had been based mostly fully on decades-old ‘rule of thumb’ practices that had 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 your trade’s lobbying group states that snake enclosures “ought to present [the animal with] enough house to stretch out and transfer freely.” Stretching out totally and transferring in a straight line are important to snakes’ well-being. Accordingly, PETA seems to be ahead to your immediate affirmation that your profitable firm—which claims to be “an trade chief in reptile … care”—will give this fundamental alternative to the snakes you breed and ship. Thanks to your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Daniel Paden
Vice President of Proof Evaluation
Cruelty Investigations Division
