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Starving snakes, dead rodents found in Texas raid

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) - Starving snakes, dead rodents and hundreds of reptiles packed in shipping crates were discovered Tuesday when animal welfare groups in Texas raided an exotic animal delivery company, officials said.

Dozens of people with the city of Arlington, SPCA of Texas and the Humane Society of North Texas took inventory of the animals - estimated at 20,000 - and removed them from U.S. Global Exotics. The Arlington-based company, which advertises that it delivers exotic animals worldwide, did not respond to a phone message seeking comment, and its Web site was taken down Tuesday afternoon.

"Sometimes animals die, but the amount of animals dead far exceeded what you would normally see at any company like this," said Jay Sabatucci, manager of animal services with the city of Arlington. "Animals were not fed, not fed properly, overcrowded and attacking each other. Some were in an environment not proper for them, such as snakes in a 72-degree room with a lamp over them, which is not enough heat and could cause them to die."

The company's warehouse held mostly reptiles and rodents and also spiders, sloths and hedgehogs, but it was unclear how many were dead, said Maura Davies, a spokeswoman with the SPCA of Texas. Veterinarians were on hand to treat the most severely malnourished animals, she said.

Hundreds of rodents were crammed in small containers covered with wire, and many had killed and eaten each other, Davies said. Other animals were kept in feeding troughs, and there were numerous stacked shipping containers still holding turtles and other reptiles that had been sent to the company, Davies said. About 200 iguanas were in one small room, she said.

A hearing will be held within 10 days to determine if the animals will be returned to the company or stay in the care of the animal welfare groups, Sabatucci said. The city is considering filing criminal charges against the owner, he said.

The city was tipped off recently by federal officials who had executed a warrant for another violation and reported concerns about the animals' conditions, Sabatucci said.
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~Maggie~

"Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious."
1.1 Cal Kings (Spot and Fry)
1.0 Florida King (Gamble)
1.0 Ball Python (Mitch)
0.1 Red Belly Piranha (Fluffy)
1.0 Australian Shepherd (Spooky)
1.0 Springer Spaniel/Beagle mix (Snoopy)
0.1 Cat (Ecco)
0.1 Mountain Horse (Sandy)
0.1 Standardbred/Arabian Horse (Storm)
0.0.1 - foal on the way....

If you have an agenda, every place has rats in over crowded cages with wire tops, dead feeder animals, animals in feeder troughs, 200 iguanas in one small room, snakes kept in the 70’s with a heat lamp, etc. Sounds like just about every other reptile dealer’s place I’ve ever been to. I think this is more war from the Humane Society. They will not stop until there is no pet ownership period. I don’t know anything about Global Exotics, but if the Humane Society is involved, I’m giving the reptile dealer the benefit of the doubt in this case. I don’t trust that group one bit.

I dont know about the business, but snakes in the 70's with a basking lamp seems a good choice for many species.It just depends on the kind and strength of the lamp

We need people from our side, people we trust, to be officials at such a raid to help determine the facts. If anything else, I hope this serves as a wakeup to better police ourselves and to help us set standards for ourselves in how we maintain animals on a large scale. Otherwise, other people with limited information will set the standards for us. I'd rather see the community police ourselves than have others with an agenda put those standards in place.
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Todd Hughes

To me they sound like nothing more than a pet mill, pumping out animals for nothing more than profit, no different than puppy farms. Being the case I'm glad they got busted and shut down.

I see no war from the Humane Society, I see irresponsible people who didn't and wouldn't take care of their animals. It takes little to do research on a breeder or breeders, to get references by word of mouth and the computer. Having a bad reputation gets around just as a good one does.

If it's a group you don't want to trust, it's PETA and irresponsible people who keep such pet mills in business. I can think of one such pet mill that posts reptiles for sale on this site.

>>If you have an agenda, every place has rats in over crowded cages with wire tops, dead feeder animals, animals in feeder troughs, 200 iguanas in one small room, snakes kept in the 70’s with a heat lamp, etc. Sounds like just about every other reptile dealer’s place I’ve ever been to. I think this is more war from the Humane Society. They will not stop until there is no pet ownership period. I don’t know anything about Global Exotics, but if the Humane Society is involved, I’m giving the reptile dealer the benefit of the doubt in this case. I don’t trust that group one bit.

when you give the shipping company the benefit of the doubt despite some of the allegations in the article, i think you're bending over too far. way too far.

Are you kidding?

Any herper who is not disgusted by this kind of thing is a disgrace. The animal welfare issues surrounding our hobby are truly atrocious. There is a REASON why HSUS is against exotic pet ownership. I am not saying I agree with HSUS, I think that the rational response is education and legislation, not outrageous bans and incursions on our freedoms and rights. But the amount of reptiles that die horrible negligent deaths in the US every year is astounding and unacceptable.

People like this distributer give everyone a bad name. I was in reptile retail and have been in dozens of import/wholesale facilities. Are things sometimes crowded? Yes. Are conditions always perfect? No. is there still a right way and a wrong way to go about doing things so that animals are not completely neglected? Yes.

Any herper backing up a place like that or even buying from them should really be ashamed of themselves.

Stepping off soapbox...

You are all a bunch of spineless sheep being led to your own slaughter. There is not a single reptile dealer in this world that these anti-pet people would not accuse of exactly these same things regardless of how clean and proper everything would be. You would find the conditions of any animal food processing plant, whether cattle or chickens to be horrific horror scenes. And they would be perfectly run above board operations. That’s the way it is. I still eat meat. And I still buy reptiles from dealers. Grow a pair and save your hobby. These people are conducting raids and manufacturing the story to suit their agenda. Get back on your soap box, but let’s present a united front that supports our side. If things were truly that bad at the dealer, we would know, stop buying from them, and they would be put out of business by us. If there were legitimate violations, and charges are filed (so far no...) I agree there should be zero tolerance. Just based on what was in this story, there was almost nothing to make me think the dealer has done anything wrong and several hints that they were wording certain things for negative effect.

Since when is 72*F in the middle of Dec. concidered dangerous and neglectful to most reptiles? and they also quoted lamps were also provided.It sounds like they are knit picking to justify the raid. I Would question if the dead rodents might of been in the freezer. A case of guilty and prove yourself innocent

You are all a bunch of spineless sheep being led to your own slaughter. There is not a single reptile dealer in this world that these anti-pet people would not accuse of exactly these same things regardless of how clean and proper everything would be. You would find the conditions of any animal food processing plant, whether cattle or chickens to be horrific horror scenes. And they would be perfectly run above board operations. That’s the way it is. I still eat meat. And I still buy reptiles from dealers. Grow a pair and save your hobby. These people are conducting raids and manufacturing the story to suit their agenda. Get back on your soap box, but let’s present a united front that supports our side. If things were truly that bad at the dealer, we would know, stop buying from them, and they would be put out of business by us. If there were legitimate violations, and charges are filed (so far no...) I agree there should be zero tolerance. Just based on what was in this story, there was almost nothing to make me think the dealer has done anything wrong and several hints that they were wording certain things for negative effect.

I agree with everything you said here 100%. Thanks for having the guts to speak up after the previous posters.

This is the type of thinking that gets our nation in trouble. The mentality that Government is always right. usually happens with limited information and zero education. The people have a knee jrk reaction as was displayed here. We follow like sheep into the slaughter without thinking. What we need to do is supoport the distribiter and educate by writing the idiots in cahrge of this mess. that is the only way this will get resolved.

The worst thing we need is peta or other legislation to add more regulation and it usually happens with this sort of misinformation and half truths. They are the voice and we are the silent ones. Who do you think wins?

The whole Calif regulations on reptiles started like this with bag limits on very common species. Do you think they will ever reverse the legislation even though population densities were never done? -NO! Do you think that they will ever look at the facts? -NO! Have people tried? -YES! But they refuse to even look at the facts and even gone so far as lying that there were population denisties done , but there were none ever done. Folks, regulation is always easy. Deregulation is nearly impossible. WITH THE DEMOCRATS IN CONTROL LOOK FORWARD TO THIS NATION TOPPLEING. That's right, you heard it here first. Just remmeber when it happens where you heard it from. But then it will be to late,,, heck it already is.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!
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www.Bluerosy.com

"Pray for Obama. Psalm 109:8".

"They that can give up essential liberty, to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety." -Benjamin Franklin

Thanks.
It is a huge mistake that people are led to believe organizations like Association of Zoos and Aquariums, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the Humane Society, ASPCA, are somehow government agencies. They are not. I could start Upscale’s Society Underground Care of Kritters USUCK and have exactly the same business structure as any of them. Only difference is THEY SUCK. They are money sucking pet-o-files. When you see these stories, and they capture the python they just released, and hold up the dead fish they just poisoned, and all the publicity generating (generated) stories, don’t accept anything as being the truth from any of them. Don’t be a dupe! Enough from my soap box!

Absoluly Correct Sir !!!!!I Frequent a local flea/farmers market and the have a humane society accepting donations all day long and selling junkyard dogs for retail prices and after viewing their web site it clearly states they are not afiliated with any other Humane Society. they appear to bring in about 10-20K amonth but amazingly their expence are always more than adoptions and donations. I Think most reptile buis are non profit as many will agree .......Hmmm...Donations made for Rodent feed just click tab located at pa-pal.ThankYou

>>...WITH THE DEMOCRATS IN CONTROL LOOK FORWARD TO THIS NATION TOPPLEING. That's right, you heard it here first.

Rainer, you've earned a lot of cred with your posts about reptiles and reptile care. Comments like this one undermine that. Please, don't push yourself into an extremist corner. You've got too much to contribute.

I know nothing about this business nor the article or its integrity. I don't care. That was not what I was talking about. I have personally seen with my own eyes the horrible things that the pet trade does to reptiles in our industry. It is not OK. If you want to save our hobby like you claim then your right we do need to stick to gether. And fix whats broken because if we (the herp community) don't fix it that society will fix it for us in terms of legislation that will not make any of us happy. Support GOOD breeders and HONEST wholesalers instead of a reptile black market that looks like a crime ring to the general public. The fact that this place sounds like every other reptile dealer to you is perfect proof of the magnitude and scope of this problem. It is not an excuse to condone it.

You said, "I don’t know anything about Global Exotics, but if the Humane Society is involved, I’m giving the reptile dealer the benefit of the doubt in this case. I don’t trust that group one bit." And that basically means that you are going to jump into a fight with ZERO real information. Real smart. Sounds like your sac is on its way to saving our hobby.

And have you ever even been to a slaughter house or factory farm situation? Most are not what you think. Maybe you have been watching too many PETA videos?

Thank you. I don't think we need to take the news reports at face value but instantly jumping to the conclusion that it is a multi-agency consipiracy is kind of out there. And I've certainly seen some really scuzzy places that met that description; animals dead and decaying in cages, crawling with mites, obviously ill (bubbling at the mouth), unheated...hell there's a place right here in Amarillo that sounds like that and I've never been able to get them busted (I have tried). So just dismissing it out of hand isn't really appropriate, because we know that places do operate that way. Yes, there needs to be an actual investigation, but perhaps we shouldn't be in such a rush to circle the wagons? Anytime a group of people refuses any and all criticism and refuses to acknowledge internal problems it makes them look like self assured ijits.

Bad things do happen in our hobby. It sucks but it's true. Otherwise reptile rescues and adoptions wouldn't be needed. Otherwise I wouldn't have had to take in a sickly Florida king from a kid that shouldn't have had it. Otherwise the local crap-shop would be shut down for displaying a freaking croc monitor in a damn parrot cage or for having a burm in a rabbit hutch. Rather than sticking our heads in the sand and refusing to admit that there's a problem we need to find a way to deal with it. Publicly condemn them, maybe help write legislation that addresses basic care requirments for commercial operations, maybe just refuse to do business with them once they come to light...but don't pretend it's hunky-dory.

This is PETA warfare.

This link is to the story that says a PETA informant worked at the facility for seven months to gather information that led to the raid.

http://www.star-telegram.com/local/story/1834581.html

There is nothing that states whether the dead animals were feeder rats in a freezer or not. There is nothing that states the animals held without food and water for a week were brumating snakes or not. Nothing to state if there were animals that arrived in shipping that may have arrived dead (it’s pretty cold right now in some places). The animals should never be removed from a facility that is in the business of dealing with them to another location during a snow storm. How many of these animals are going to die directly as a result of this raid? I wonder if all cage cleaning stopped once the raid began and how many animals were denied the maintenance they would have received that very day because of the raid? This was started from a PETA informant who got a job at the facility and witnessed thousands of animal deaths. I wonder if feeding a live fish to a turtle is a death? Feeding a fruit fly to a lizard? A meal worm? Will we ever hear what actually happened here? What happens if the biased testimony from the undercover PETA informant gets thrown out? Has there been any cruelty or anything illegal going on at all?

Go to this link and see a video from the raid and read some of the comments.

http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/outbursts/2009/dec/15/thousands-of-exotic-animals-seized-at-arlington-wa/

If the news story is accurate and they were pulling corpses out of cages, it's pretty hard to defend them. I'd like to see photos to be sure, but it does sound bad. If we blindly defend people that practice crappy husbandry all we do is make ourselves look like knee-jerk reactionist. I've seen some truly god-awful places that were like that (mall pet stores--places of death!) so it isnt' too much of a stretch to my imagination.
The red flags that are raised to me are the presence of PETA...but that's just a red flag, not a cause for summarily dismissing the idea that this guy was another parasite on the hobby.

Arlington weather has been 34 degrees to a high of 60 this week. The temp on the television newscast report was 40 degrees. You can see the guys bringing out Isis boxes with iguanas and putting them into a trailer. Heat in there you think? I pray this guy gets his animals back and is vindicated and we hear how many animals were casualties because of this raid. Why would an undercover investigation involving horrible conditions, starving animals, cruelty and death take seven months? Or be allowed to go on for seven months?

I would hope some people here would know of this place and say if they got problem animals or have any inside info to say one way or the other. I personally doubted this from the first second, and I know nothing about any of it, I am just sick and tired of the animal nut job police and people sitting back and not fighting back and now just accepting this crap without questioning if maybe the reptile guy is completely innocent. For all we know, the PETA guy was the one not properly taking care of animals or mislabeling things and just setting the whole thing up.

i totally agree with all you have said. the fact is we dont know what conditions were like. without true actual info. nobody knows and the animal rights and press group WILL keep it that way.
it sure is disheartening to see them taking all them ectotherms out in the cold in a cold trailer and the sad fact is those deaths and sicknesses WILL be put on the owners.
just disgusting all the way around 1 peta 0 hobbiest geez how sad.
,,,,,,,,,,thomas davis
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Morphs... just like baseball cards BUT ALIVE, how cool is that???

my website www.barmollysplace.com

>>... Why would an undercover investigation involving horrible conditions, starving animals, cruelty and death take seven months?

The (admittedly mismanaged) Bernie Madoff investigation took more than five years. Hundreds of investors lost their life savings while the inquiry was under way.

>>... I personally doubted this from the first second, and I know nothing about any of it...

You might have better argued your case if you hadn't written that.

>>I am just sick and tired of the animal nut job police and people sitting back and not fighting back and now just accepting this crap

Monty Python:
“I think that all good, right thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that all good, right thinking people in this country are fed up with being told that all good, right thinking people in this country are fed up with being sick and tired. I'm certainly not, and I'm sick and tired of being told that I am”

This thread is frightening proof our hobby/business is dangerously divided. We better all come together with--if nothing else--an agreement:
--to be open minded;
--to form opinions based on fact and
--to make decisions based on evidence.

(Your post of the link to the video of the animals being removed from the warehouse was in that spirit, and i thank you for that)

peace
terry

If the news story is accurate and they were pulling corpses out of cages, it's pretty hard to defend them

I think they were referring to mice.

You have never had mice kill each other and then eat the corpses? Try putting two males together with females. Or how about females eating their first clutches and leaving some to rot amidst the shavings? That happens a lot with domestic mice. jeez mice kill and eat each other all the time.

I have also had baby snakes try to eat each other but could not because of size or regurged the meal afterwards. I guess if they came to my place at the right time they would find the same.
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www.Bluerosy.com

"Pray for Obama. Psalm 109:8".

"They that can give up essential liberty, to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety." -Benjamin Franklin

I don't keep my feeders in any condition that encourages cannabilism...they're animals too. granted I don't breed many of them but still. They're going to die soon, no sense making what life they get unpleasent.

I quit raising mice because they are so cannabalistic... Even with a cage cleaned twice daily, watered 3 times a day, and more food then they could eat in a month, some mice will just eat their young...
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~Maggie~

"Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious."
1.1 Cal Kings (Spot and Fry)
1.0 Florida King (Gamble)
1.0 Ball Python (Mitch)
0.1 Red Belly Piranha (Fluffy)
1.0 Australian Shepherd (Spooky)
1.0 Springer Spaniel/Beagle mix (Snoopy)
0.1 Cat (Ecco)
0.1 Mountain Horse (Sandy)
0.1 Standardbred/Arabian Horse (Storm)
0.0.1 - foal on the way....

I've seen other posts on other forums about this and some people that had personally been there were not surprised to hear about this happening. Said that it was bad even for a large wholesale operation. Again I personally have never seen the place, but those that say it was pretty bad are very reputable.

Thanks for finding those links, I knew there had to be more to the story, but with my dialup connection, itd take weeks to find it...

Am I the only one who noticed that the video of the raid came from Fox news... I wonder how much of it was staged....
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~Maggie~

"Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious."
1.1 Cal Kings (Spot and Fry)
1.0 Florida King (Gamble)
1.0 Ball Python (Mitch)
0.1 Red Belly Piranha (Fluffy)
1.0 Australian Shepherd (Spooky)
1.0 Springer Spaniel/Beagle mix (Snoopy)
0.1 Cat (Ecco)
0.1 Mountain Horse (Sandy)
0.1 Standardbred/Arabian Horse (Storm)
0.0.1 - foal on the way....