Blub Blub

It’s hard to see an animal suffering. Trust me, I know. But in the long run, nothing will change if you continue to buy them. Nothing will change if you still stay silent. 

Look at that snake you see in petsmart’s window and walk away. You want to know what you can do to help? Complain to management, talk to the cooperations, demand change and don’t give them profit. 

At that point, youre just buying these animals to make yourself feel good about “rescuing” and you need to find a legit rescue and not keep funding the very problem in the hobby.

So what can you do instead when you run into a poorly run petco/smart? Talk to management, call corporate, but most importantly stop buying their damn livestock that will just be replaced by another poorly cared for, sick animal.

Supply and demand folks; basic economics.

Koi Pond

Discus and Fry

‘The retailer, which last year made more than £6bn of revenues in Britain, has a disciplinary system under which points are accrued for illness. Workers are issued a penalty point for each episode of sickness.

Workers are told that more than one point will result in a “series of counselling and disciplinary meetings” and between four and six points can result in dismissal.

In one case, a woman who spent three days in hospital with a kidney infection was docked two points, reduced to one on appeal, despite providing a hospital note.

The system has been revealed in an investigation by The Sunday Times at Amazon’s sorting depot in Dunfermline, Scotland.

The undercover reporter was paid £7.35 per hour by an agency that supplies workers to Amazon, but was left with less than the minimum wage after paying £10 for the agency’s bus which took her to the site 40 miles from her home in Glasgow.

It emerged this weekend that some low-paid workers are camping out in woodland near the sorting depot to avoid paying the bus costs and ensure they are left with more than the minimum wage…

The reporter obtained a job with PMP Recruitment, one of the two main agencies that hires and supervises workers at the Dunfermline depot. The investigation found:

Workers being threatened with dismissal if they accrued too many points for illness, late attendance or absence, or for making too many errors or failing to hit productivity targets.

A claim from a worker in Amazon’s on-site first-aid clinic that workers were under pressure to hit targets and were suffering injuries in the rush to collect products

Workers were expected to cover more than 10 miles a day in the warehouse collecting items, but water dispensers to ensure they avoided dehydration were regularly empty

The reporter was told she had to sign an opt-out of the working time directive, which limits weekly hours to 48, in order to get a job.

The reporter was employed as a “temporary warehouse operative” at Amazon’s vast plant in Fife. She worked in the “picking” department, which involved retrieving items from across several floors of the sprawling warehouse, according to orders displayed on a handheld scanner she was given. She worked at least 10 hours a day, with an unpaid 30-minute lunch break and two 15-minute paid breaks….

Under the system set out in the Amazon temporary associate handbook, half a point is issued to recruits who are late to work or late back from a break; one point for “one period of sickness”; and three points for “no call, no show”. The undercover reporter was told that anyone who was more than 30 seconds late in arriving at work or returning after a break would be subject to the half-point penalty.

Koi Pond

This is something that could really be applied to a lot of fish keepers, but with the prevalence of bettas on tumblr I see it most coming from some (probably not all) members of the bettablr community.

You need to learn to separate your feelings about your personal, individual fish from statements about the group of animals as a WHOLE.

We as hobbyists are the ONLY stewards of the hobby we love.

Breeders, stores, legislators - NO ONE else is looking out for it, or trying to make it progress in any way. They either don’t care or are looking to profit, even if that means following unethical practices to do it. When we see something wrong, it is on US and ONLY US to try to make a positive change.

So we need to open our eyes and be aware of the things that need to change.

When someone says that certain varieties of domestic bettas should not be bred or should not be bought because these varieties have an extremely heightened predisposition to certain health problems (which are undoubtedly at least uncomfortable if not constantly painful for the fish), they are NOT trying to demonize you for already keeping them or your personal individual fish for existing.

No one is saying you are a bad person for already owning these fish. No one is attacking your personal individual and much beloved pet.

We are saying that we need to be responsible stewards of our hobby and push for changes that need to happen.

You need to be able to take a step back and look at these animals and recognize that we are actively breeding traits into them that are detrimental to their health and longevity. That’s not okay. The responsible course of action to take from there is not to buy future fish exhibiting those traits.

Sure, that limits your fish options. But do you really want to knowingly contribute to the production of these unethical fish?

When you purchase (note that this has absolutely nothing to do with rescues) these fish, you tell the stores and the breeders that there is a demand for them, so they’re going to keep on breeding them. You tell them its a good idea to bring more of these fish into the world, regardless of how much they may end up suffering for the sake of looking more aesthetically pleasing.

If you love the domestic betta, why would you want them to be bred into animals that are barely able to function? Wouldn’t you want to strive for for a pinnacle of health, the best the animal could be?

There wouldn’t have been the “discourse” there’s been on this subject if so many hadn’t read a criticism of a kind of animal as a whole and felt the need to turn it into demonizing all existing animals and their keepers. That’s not what anyone has said, at least as far as I’ve seen.