Temporary Pets??

[LS84]

As an animal lover, I feel no pet should be sold as "temporary" or made out to look like an easy and fun small pet that will die in a few weeks. It's been bothering me for a while so I figured I'd post my experience with this in the past few months...

On the boardwalk here in NJ...there were always hermit crabs that you could buy. They sell them in tiny little plastic cages with screens for them to climb on. Hermit crabs are just like snakes and lizards, they need high humidity, a hot and cool side and fresh water. People sell them in these screen cages where half are on the bottom dead from being too cold or having no water. NO store that I have seen even has care sheets for them. No one thinks they need heat and no one realizes that if they get too dry or are arent misted often, they slowly suffocate because their gills dry up. Then they just die and people say "oh well, never could keep one of those alive for more than a few weeks!"

Then, this summer something new started happening. Not only are they selling them in the stores, but giving them away as PRIZES just like stuffed animals at all the games on the boardwalk. AND to make it worse, they are also giving away betta fish AND anoles. And once again, they give the anoles away in little plastic cages without heat and are using colorful fish tank gravel as a substrate for both hermit crabs and the lizards. People crowd around these games and parents try to win them for their 5 year olds, not caring that they are living things. When it drops to the 50s and 60's but the boardwalk is still open, the hermit crabs and anoles just freeze and die and they leave them in the cages.

All this along with seeing teeny little baby red earred sliders being sold on Canal Street in New York City illegally, in small plastic cages with a fake palm trees in about a half inch of water...its enough to drive an animal lover crazy. Plus i witnessed a girl ask how big the turtles get, and the guy told her they stay 2 or 3 inches.(I of course corrected him and told her the truth).....thanks listening to me vent...it really bothers me.