Nature's Best Pets
Sent to NY Newsday
21 April 2004
Letters to the editor
NY Newsday
The recent story in the media about "Nature's Best
Pets," the Port Jefferson, Long Island pet shop that has a kangaroo in a
cage, points up the need for tighter laws regarding pet shop/'owner'
situations.
This roo, kept in an eight-foot cage, will hop in the
wild and stay close to his family. He doesn't belong in a cage; he deserves
to live in his own natural surroundings. The pet shop won't release him to a
sanctuary where he would have a good life.
The Captive Exotic Animal Act, currently before
legislators, would restrict such injustices, and help decrease the black
market for these animals, who are violently stolen from their homes and sold
to pet shops, laboratories, zoos, etc.
The public also needs to be educated about these
animals and the role they play as consumers. The animals are not blocks of
wood; each feels pain, fear and loneliness exactly as humans do. They suffer
as humans do. Be a compassionate shopper; don't purchase living beings who
are sold in stores like so much Kleenex.
Kiley Blackman, Spokesperson
Animal Defenders of Westchester
