Company Ships 'Relinquished' Turtles to Meat Factory Farm, Which Exports 80 Percent of Turtles Overseas for Slaughter
For Immediate Release:
October 29, 2012
Contact:
Shakira Croce 202-483-7382
San Diego — After learning that PETCO has been soliciting pet turtles from the public for months and shipping them to its own turtle supplier—a major exporter of turtles to China's turtle-meat market—PETA has posted an urgent action alert on its popular website asking visitors to contact PETCO and call on the company to end its so-called "Turtle Relinquishment Program" as well as its sale of pet turtles. The program was evidently prompted by recent news of pet turtle–related cases of salmonella poisoning in humans.
Because of the link between turtles and salmonella, the sale of baby turtles less than 4 inches long has been banned in the U.S. since 1975; however, turtles of all sizes naturally carry salmonella in their intestinal tracts. PETCO's program solicits free turtles from unknowing families and ships them to its supplier turtle factory farm, presumably for eventual resale into the pet trade—thereby increasing and spreading the risk of salmonella poisoning by recycling turtles and putting them back into the market.
"If PETCO truly cared about protecting children and families from salmonella, it would stop selling turtles—not funnel them into the pet trade for profit," says PETA Senior Vice President of Cruelty Investigations Daphna Nachminovitch. "PETCO's 'relinquishment' program is nothing but a scam that will send family pets to a filthy factory farm and compromise human health by perpetuating the ownership of captive turtles and the risk of salmonella poisoning."
The factory farm that PETCO does business with is Concordia Turtle Farm in Louisiana, which advertises itself as the "largest commercial turtle farm in the United States." It keeps nearly 200,000 adult turtles in only 17 ponds. Concordia breeds 60,000 pet turtles a year for PETCO alone and ships more than 2 million turtle hatchlings overseas for slaughter annually, mostly to China.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.
