Info US GLOBAL EXOTICS SPCA RAID

[MiamiExotics]

I bought T-shirts

 

[MiamiExotics]

and as for defending the reptile industry, the best bet right now is USARK and PIJAC

 

[lanceheads]

Do you have any evidence of those numbers you tossed out?

But to answer your implication...I would be concerned if I learned that PETA was letting animals die in pain and agony just as I am now. A lot of animals can't be saved once they have reached a certain point. Even Pet shelters have to euthanize animals that they can't find homes for.

I am less concerned with humane euthanizing than I am with animals dying in pain and agony. We already have too many animals and not enough owners.

I believe a few years ago, a Peta employee was caught throwing live, albeit sick cats in a dumpster somewhere in New Jersey. He was caught on video tape and prosecuted for animal cruelty.
Anyone else remember that? I think that's what happened.

Randal Berry

 

[TattooLost]

I believe a few years ago, a Peta employee was caught throwing live, albeit sick cats in a dumpster somewhere in New Jersey. He was caught on video tape and prosecuted for animal cruelty.
Anyone else remember that? I think that's what happened.

Randal Berry

This might be what you're referring to. Pretty sick for an "animal rights" group. Sounds to me more like politics as usual. Of COURSE they would never mistreat animals or needlessly kill them. They love animals, right?

http://www.petakillsanimals.com/petaTrial.cfm

 

[lanceheads]

This might be what you're referring to. Pretty sick for an "animal rights" group. Sounds to me more like politics as usual. Of COURSE they would never mistreat animals or needlessly kill them. They love animals, right?

http://www.petakillsanimals.com/petaTrial.cfm

YES
Thats what I was thinking of, got the states wrong though.
Thanks Richard for doing excellent Detective work!

Randal Berry

 

[WebSlave]

Why does the location where the animals are being kept a guarded secret?
I mean, what purpose does it serve to keep a "location" secret?
Are they afraid they will get "raided"?

Quite likely that is for their own protection (PR wise). This way it is much more difficult for someone to followup on the actually disposition of all those animals and then report to the public that most of them died. Which is quite likely. That would completely defeat their argument (and the stated purpose of their existence) that they are "saving" the animals at all. So of course they are going to cover their tracks as well as they can.

They interrupted a process where large volumes of animals come in from many sources, then get dispersed to MANY destinations of people who WILL likely take good care of them. U.S. Global was not really designed to hold onto animals and take care of them indefinitely. It was designed to MOVE animals from sellers to buyers. It is NOT a zoo, public attraction, pet shop, nor "care giver" business. It is a MIDDLE MAN business that WANTS to move animals in and out of their hands as quickly as possible, not feed and clean cages. Their profit margin is tightly connected to putting as little into the upkeep as possible as long as the short period (they hope) those animals are there before being moved out to THEIR customers. Heck, most of the shipments I made to Jasen were being shipped out the day after he received them. He COULDN'T feed them under those kinds of circumstances or that certainly WOULD be harmful to the snakes.

Some people may not like seeing animals handled in that sort of manner, but if you are talking about high volume movement of animals in commerce, I'm afraid that this is pretty much the reality of it. Heck, the costs of international shipments pretty much require shippers to pack animals as tightly and as efficiently as possible. If you want to put an end to that, then you also put an end to your getting ANY animals shipped internationally at anything approaching a reasonable price.

 

[Curious George]

Quite likely that is for their own protection (PR wise). This way it is much more difficult for someone to followup on the actually disposition of all those animals and then report to the public that most of them died. Which is quite likely. That would completely defeat their argument (and the stated purpose of their existence) that they are "saving" the animals at all. So of course they are going to cover their tracks as well as they can.

They interrupted a process where large volumes of animals come in from many sources, then get dispersed to MANY destinations of people who WILL likely take good care of them. U.S. Global was not really designed to hold onto animals and take care of them indefinitely. It was designed to MOVE animals from sellers to buyers. It is NOT a zoo, public attraction, pet shop, nor "care giver" business. It is a MIDDLE MAN business that WANTS to move animals in and out of their hands as quickly as possible, not feed and clean cages. Their profit margin is tightly connected to putting as little into the upkeep as possible as long as the short period (they hope) those animals are there before being moved out to THEIR customers. Heck, most of the shipments I made to Jasen were being shipped out the day after he received them. He COULDN'T feed them under those kinds of circumstances or that certainly WOULD be harmful to the snakes.

Some people may not like seeing animals handled in that sort of manner, but if you are talking about high volume movement of animals in commerce, I'm afraid that this is pretty much the reality of it. Heck, the costs of international shipments pretty much require shippers to pack animals as tightly and as efficiently as possible. If you want to put an end to that, then you also put an end to your getting ANY animals shipped internationally at anything approaching a reasonable price.

To add a note as to disposition when so many animals are involved. State and federal entities do not have facilities available to dump 100 animals into, much less thousands. What they have at different levels are lists of private licensed breeders, importers, etc, who have not run afoul of the law. The Feds have such identified specifically to take animals such as this. The only obligation of the receiving private entity is to freeze the animal if it dies, as it is evidence. Seeing as the judge ruled in a certain way, and the number of animals, it is possible that such private entities have been green-lighted to sell the animals as well.

With the confiscation of rare species, which are then farmed to private breeders who have made the "A list", there are no restrictions on such private breeders actually breeding the suspect critters, and keeping the offspring, while they have custody The only requirement is that they maintain the evidence, dead or alive.

As Rich said, I can't see the authorities wanting the public to know that the animals went back into the pet trade. Its that or euthanasia, the latter which is also done, and which is not very complimentary of government custody.

 

[Tim Cole]

I believe a few years ago, a Peta employee was caught throwing live, albeit sick cats in a dumpster somewhere in New Jersey. He was caught on video tape and prosecuted for animal cruelty.
Anyone else remember that? I think that's what happened.

Randal Berry

I remember it well.

 

[StrictlyExotics]

Usually I do not make comments unless I am an expert or have some knowledge pertaining to the issue at hand. I do, however, want to chime in.

As Rich said in his post, US Global was in the business of moving massive quantities of animals as quickly as possible. They were not designed, like us, to house animals indefinitely. They are in the business of turning over inventory.

After reading post after post after post, I do not believe that US Global is in the right when it comes to taking care of their inventory. I am pretty sure we ALL agree with this particular statement. However, I do not believe that they 100% guilty either.

They "had" 6 employees with over 15% of that being an undercover imposter without a license. That is clearly NOT enough to take care of the inventory at hand, especially if you have mammals. Now, I dont think the imposter "cracked a wallaby over the head" like he was back in T-Ball again but, I do think that when you have 15% of your staff working with an agenda, that is part of the problem. Who is to say that they did not PURPOSELY neglect his duties to take care of animals while on PETAs payroll.

Deborah, this is NOT a jab at you so please dont take it as such... One thing I have learned about PETA in my years is that if you are for them, you are against yourself. What I mean by that is that if you wear skin, eat meat, own pets, et al... You cannot possibly be on PETAs side. They look at YOU as the enemy.

In my own wholehearted opinion, whats going on with US Global is each and everyone of our faults. We create their supply and demand. We complain about imports yet we want those different morphs. I remember when their was no such thing as a CB Normal Ball Python. My first ball python was pre 1990 and I had to feed it in a bag, in a box, inside a dark room like my closet. Back then, Pieds were 25k and Albinos were 10k.

The whole thing with US Global is terrible and I think, pray that it wont, its going to affect each and every pet owner in the USA. The saddest thing about all of this is that we as human beings and citizens of this great country are slowly losing all of our rights. Weve lost freedom of choice in so many different ways because we let our govt take them away. We, as a society, care more about animal rights than civil rights. We care more about being "politically correct" than being correct politically. And to be quite honest, the raid on US Global was all about politics.

 

[Matt K]

Just a side note:

Somehow thier "employee count" went from 8 to 6 in this thread.... I thought there were 8 not including Jasen and his wife originally.

Dean's closing statement is what we really need to pay attention to as well....

 

[Lynn]

It could be a large variety of reasons. None are excuses though, but logical reasons that can happen at places that large.

1 If this raid was to be done because of the bills coming up.. Why did they not raid all importers/ exporters?
-BECAUSE MOST IMPORTERS/EXPORTERS are in florida. Florida FWS regulates them, not local animal control. Animal control in florida has no jursidiction unless its visibly preventative and they jump in, but tehy themselves do not have the possesion permits required to posses certain animals in florida.
2 How can 8 people properly care for 22000 plus animals?
DEPENDS on how you look at it. Was it 22000 small mammals? then thats alot, but if it is snakes, I know plenty of people who take care of 3,000+ snakes by themselves. If mostly reptiles, and amphibians, not too hard. The small exotic mammals are when its tough with such little staff. W dont have numbers on whats what, so how are we gonna know which is which?

3 Why did they not get rid of the dead animals that were found in boxes the morning of the raid? I think dead animals should be properly taking care of daily.
This is a touchy subject. Alot of importers/exporters are required to take photos of doa or bad animals and report them to the shippers. They may have been being held for photo reasons and then disposed of, or they may have been just sitting there( which I doubt). We also have to think, if they were deceased,as claimed, maybe trash day is that day, and they were gonna be disposed of. I seriously doubt any outfit would leave them there for customers to see without a logical reason.
Stuff happens in shipping, bad weather, airlines left them in sun or cold, etc. You need to make a claim, and the dead bodies are evidence to the claim. You have to prove they died,so maybe phtoos were being taken and they were waiting for trash guy to come?
Either way, I truly hope they are not the way the media claims.

Thank you. This is one thing I love about this board.. I learn something every time I come....

 

[Matt K]

Lynn did bring up a good point though....

What about wholesalers in California? I know there are alot there too.

 

[shinezilla]

This might be what you're referring to. Pretty sick for an "animal rights" group. Sounds to me more like politics as usual. Of COURSE they would never mistreat animals or needlessly kill them. They love animals, right?

http://www.petakillsanimals.com/petaTrial.cfm

Aww, the pictures made me cry... One of the beagle pups looked like mine that I had for 12yrs and "ran away" the day after Christmas and I never seen him again... He always came back or I'd be sure to find him at the shelter the next morning, but not this time.

That PETA article sucks, I'd kick that girl in her ovaries and the dude square in the nuts.
...I know, sorry.

 

[deborahbroadus]

Usually I do not make comments unless I am an expert or have some knowledge pertaining to the issue at hand. I do, however, want to chime in.

As Rich said in his post, US Global was in the business of moving massive quantities of animals as quickly as possible. They were not designed, like us, to house animals indefinitely. They are in the business of turning over inventory.

After reading post after post after post, I do not believe that US Global is in the right when it comes to taking care of their inventory. I am pretty sure we ALL agree with this particular statement. However, I do not believe that they 100% guilty either.

They "had" 6 employees with over 15% of that being an undercover imposter without a license. That is clearly NOT enough to take care of the inventory at hand, especially if you have mammals. Now, I dont think the imposter "cracked a wallaby over the head" like he was back in T-Ball again but, I do think that when you have 15% of your staff working with an agenda, that is part of the problem. Who is to say that they did not PURPOSELY neglect his duties to take care of animals while on PETAs payroll.

Deborah, this is NOT a jab at you so please dont take it as such... One thing I have learned about PETA in my years is that if you are for them, you are against yourself. What I mean by that is that if you wear skin, eat meat, own pets, et al... You cannot possibly be on PETAs side. They look at YOU as the enemy.

In my own wholehearted opinion, whats going on with US Global is each and everyone of our faults. We create their supply and demand. We complain about imports yet we want those different morphs. I remember when their was no such thing as a CB Normal Ball Python. My first ball python was pre 1990 and I had to feed it in a bag, in a box, inside a dark room like my closet. Back then, Pieds were 25k and Albinos were 10k.

The whole thing with US Global is terrible and I think, pray that it wont, its going to affect each and every pet owner in the USA. The saddest thing about all of this is that we as human beings and citizens of this great country are slowly losing all of our rights. Weve lost freedom of choice in so many different ways because we let our govt take them away. We, as a society, care more about animal rights than civil rights. We care more about being "politically correct" than being correct politically. And to be quite honest, the raid on US Global was all about politics.

After researching the Petakills site... I am just sick to learn of all this... I understand exactly what you mean and I agree. However, I still do not think that we should let hatred of PETA blind us to the possibility that Global could be wrong as some seem to be doing. Nevertheless, I am now wobbling on the issue of would they actually kill that many animals just to further an agenda??? But feelings aside, I am still going to focus on the facts of the issue that come up and are proven, regardless of whom provides those facts.

I am of the mind that the two wrongs committed by PETA and GLOBAL (if guilty) do not cancel out each other.

*On that note, I will bow out, I have nothing further to add but opinions and my opinions do not make me a supporter of any organization.

 

[brd7666]

I appologize if this link has already been posted.

http://blog.peta2.com/2010/01/dealer_loses_custody_of_stock.html?c=11

If you are a home based business, stop allowing people into your home to see your setup. What you as a hobbiest consider good housing, others may not. I say this because you don't know who could come to your home and you don't know what their intentions are. Maybe they want to buy, maybe they don't, but have some other reason for wanting to see you setup. If you deal out of your home then either bring animals out to them or drive somewhere convienent for you and your potential customer and bring a few animals with you. Most potential customers have seen pics before hand anyway. Also, by meeting somewhere they really don't know where you even keep your animals, if you allow them on your property and you bring them out for them to see, they know that is where you keep your animals.

Retail stores and wholesalers that have an open door for anyone to walk in. You people are the one's that could have who knows who walking in your place of business at any time. When I walk into a wholesalers place of business and I see twenty iguanas in the same cage or tarantulas living in deli cups, I don't think anything of it, but there are those out there who would say that is cruel. I am using them as examples but there are a lot more critters kept in places where there is a lot in one container, whatever size it may be.

I am willing to bet that there will be more raids in the future, big or small. The more raids that can take place, the worse off the pet industry is. If people against pets can continue to show bad conditions, big or small it will dig a deaper hole for the animal owners to get out of. Eventually the general public will say, enough is enough.

Rodent breeders of any size should also never let anyone see your setup. As we all know rodents often times will kill others and even eat others in the same cage. If the wrong people came in and saw a mouse eating it's babies they might consider that animal cruelty. These things happen with rodents, but it could be turned into fuel for their fire.

Caution needs to be used more then ever. These people want to take away our animals and our rights. They want to ruin our hopes and dreams. They mean business and they will do anything to accomplish their goals. I believe they will stoop to the lowest of lows if it means success for them in the long run. I belive that an undercover person working for any anti animal group would neglect, kill, and even plant evidence if it will help their cause. I believe they will sacrifice a few to save the rest of the animal world. They want to save the animals, or so they claim. In their minds, losing a few to death is a small price to save the masses, even if they neglected or killed the animals themselves working undercover.

If the owner of Global was on vacation during the raid, it was probably planned out that way. He wasn't there to see the dead or injured animals to do anything about it. These people knew exactly what they were doing.

The reptile industry is under attack like never before. Think before you do. Do not release anything into the wild. We need to put all of our heads together and become smarter and better educated, it's the only way we will win.

Here is an email I received earlier today.


Video & Photos of Animals Confisctaed From Texas Wildlife Game ExporterFriday, January 22, 2010 7:10 PM
From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>Add sender to ContactsTo: [email protected]hotos of wildlife seized from Arlington Texas nongame exporter:

http://blog.peta2.com/2010/01/dealer_loses_custody_of_stock.html?c=11

Please post link on websites, email to lists, groups, friends.

Businesses like these just give extreme AR groups more and more ammunition to ban all ownership of herps.

After all the owners of this establishment claim they were just following industry standards to which the judge replied then the standards must then be dramatically changed.

And if PETA can prove this establishment did follow industry standards, then that strengthens their case for banning exotics, like herps as pets.

Responsible herp owners and dealers should shun and condemn them this wholesaler Improve their own facilities. prevent another such bust.

These are first time I've seen the photos of the actual animals in the TX wholesaler. And I've been looking. The copyright for the photos is in the public domain and the video is Peta's (whom I don't think would care since they posted it.) Feel free to use them or just email a description and/or link. Unfortunately the story is a bit dated in that the case is still in appeals court so where the animals wind up is yet to be determined.

This is not just video of animals in dirty water but animals dying, with remarks from owners.


Allen Salzberg

Member of IUCN/SSC Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group

Publisher/Editor of HerpDigest. The Only Free Weekly E-Zine That Reports on The Latest News on Herpetological Conservation, Husbandry, and Science
www.herpdigest.org.

President of HerpDigest.org, the NGO that publishes HerpDigest.



Brian Dierking

 

[ozz465]

While i agree peta and such are in it for there own agenda regardless of the facts , but what excuse does US global exotics have for the condition of the animals?

 

[SERPENTS DEN]

While i agree peta and such are in it for there own agenda regardless of the facts , but what excuse does US global exotics have for the condition of the animals?

In one of the edited PETA videos Jason the owner of Global states that animals often arrive with health issues and keep in mind most of these animals are not captive bred.

On another note Jason had employees to overlook and make sure the animals were kept properly housed, clean, watered and fed. Could it be that someone like the PETA informant was intentionally neglecting these animals to further an agenda?

Also where is the unedited video and pictures that show the whole facility?

 

[kmarsh]

I agree with serpentsden's questions and also would like to know, Why is it that peta has the photo's and video's why aren't we seeing these from news reporters or some unbiased source?

 

[SERPENTS DEN]

I agree with serpentsden's questions and also would like to know, Why is it that peta has the photo's and video's why aren't we seeing these from news reporters or some unbiased source?

Ask yourself what will sell more news a biased story or the truth?

 

[JG1153]

Well I finally saw some pictures of the alledged abuse and things aren’t looking good for U.S. Global or for the rest of us for that matter. Those are some pretty compelling photos, although I suppose they could have been staged, it’s pretty hard to imagine anyone staging that photo of the hedgehog with its leg chewed off and caked with feces to top it off. Unfortunately this isn’t just going to go down as animal abuse. This whole situation has serious implications on all these upcoming legislations. That photo of the live Emerald Green Boa and the frog in the dumpster is definitely not going to help out when it comes time for legislators to decide whether our beloved pets should be banned under the Lacey Act.

I know this was a huge operation geared towards making money and not a zoo or conservation effort and as a result things should be looked at from that perspective but even if a couple of those allegations and photos are true It’s most definitely not acceptable. Ultimately it comes down to this: If you can’t provide a reasonable amount of basic care for ALL the animals being housed at yor facility then you either need to hire some extra help of scale down your operation. This applies to anyone regardless of what your operation is geared towards. Somehow only having 8 people to care for 20,000+ animals just doesn’t seem enough. Even if you’re only dealing with “cold blooded” animals that’s still kind of pushing it.
Consider this, pound per pound a “warm blooded” animal has a metabolism of roughly 3 times that of a “cold blooded “ one of the same size. That means that cuddly, furry animal eats, drinks, and most importantly defecates 3 times what a snake or lizard of equal size does and actually the smaller the warm blooded animal is the higher it’s metabolic rate is so for those hedgehogs and prairie dogs you might be looking at 4-5 time the metabolic rate, and hence requirements, when compared to a snake or lizard. When you look at it from this angel it’s pretty obvious that there’s no way 8 people are going to be able to provide basic care for all these animal all of which of course have different requirements which just complicates things even more.

Yes animals get sick and yes animals come in sick or injured from the supplier or get sick in house. We all know this so why are we letting this be an excuse? If we all (including Jansen) know this then wouldn’t this factor be taken into consideration when doing business and would therefore prompt you to have more employees to care for such animals? Yes animals attack and eat each other but this is often due to stress (which I don’t need to remind you is still abuse if the you’re the source of stress) from overcrowding, pure boredom, or the particular dispositions of the species at hand (some are territorial) and yes when you’re dealing with a large scale operation those fluke instances of animals doing these types of things without fault of your own do end up multiplying just because of the sheer numbers involved but again this is all something that should’ve already been taken into account beforehand in order to keep this to a minimum this being your job on you being an animal expert running such a huge operation.

I hate having to take PETA’s side on this since I know there are a lot of nuts within the PETA crowd but ultimately we all have to look past the political agendas, speculations, damming photos, and media B.S. that is mucking this whole situation and get to the facts and so here they are. There were only 8 employees taking care of 20,000+ animals, some sick and injured, and some with very specialized and highly involved care requirements now is 8 employees enough?


We’ll take 20,000 to be a pretty good average of the number of animals at the facility at any given time since animals are always coming in but always going out I think it’s fair to say the number coming in and going out would have to be pretty much the same in order for the business to stay in business and so the number of animals at the facility doesn’t really change even though they’re not exactly the same animals all the time.

If you have 8 employees working a regular work schedule of 40hours/week then you end up with 320 man hours/week available or 45man hours/day available to this business. So if all these employees were to spend all their time providing basic care for all these animals (this means no distractions, no breaks, no time to ship out or receive animals) that means that at most 45man hours/day would go to basic care of the animals.

Now let’s allot a certain amount of basic care time for each animal/day. Say 2min/day/animal for basic care (I know some animals will require more but then again some will require less so again it tends to even out) which comes out to 666.67 man hours/day to provide a basic 2 min/day of care to all those animals but we’ve already determined that 45 man hours/day is the maximum available amount for U.S. Global so how can all the animals be taken care of? Want to be more conservative? Sure why not, let’s go with 1 min/day/animal which comes still comes out to 333.33 man hours/day required to provide basic care for all these animals. Even more conservative? K, well at 30sec/day/animal 166.67 man hours/day are required to care for all these animals but still only 45 man hours are available for this task at U.S. Global. Let’s put this into perspective guys. If every employee worked twice the normal number of hours as normal (80hours/week) that would still only be 90 man hours/day available for these animals which is still quite short of 166.67 (remember that this is for just 30sec/day/animal). If these guys were super employees and they worked three times the normal amount (120 hours/week, which I’m not even sure if it’s legal to do) that would still only come up to 135 man hours/day available to care for all these animals. So here you have it guys in pure unbiased mathematical certainty, given the number of employees, the number of hours worked by each employee and the number of animals housed at the facility there is no way those animals could have received even a basic, basic, basic 30sec of care a day.

So there we have it folks without agendas, speculations, and media B.S. but just simple logic and inarguable math it’s pretty clear to see that there no way these animals were even close to being properly taken care of. Very simple indeed, too many animals plus not enough people(man hours) to look after all the animals equal corners being cut, and things being overlooked neglected which is nothing more than abuse. That’s the bottom line and it’s unacceptable.