Abandoned animals and fish -- some dead -- found in closed pet store

[n2doc]

By Jennifer Squires
Posted: 04/01/2010 01:30:55 AM PDT

SCOTTS VALLEY -- Maintenance workers cleaning a shuttered pet store Wednesday discovered dead fish and pet rodents in a trash bin and abandoned live sea creatures in dirty tanks, prompting an investigation by county Animal Services officers.

The fish, snails, crabs and rodents were left behind when Round Up Pet Supply closed its doors in February, according to property manager Matthew Turner. His family, the Ows, owns the King's Village Shopping Center on Mount Hermon Road, where the pet store had been for about two decades.

Turner and Nate Urbanlic, a maintenance worker, found the abandoned fish and animals.

"We started noticing live fish in the tanks with dead fish," said Urbanlic, who was draining stagnant water from the tanks Wednesday. "This is kind of gross. It's sad, too."

"Once we found those fish, we started looking around, finding everything else," Turner said.

Dead rodents -- likely gerbils, hamsters or rats, but they were too decomposed to identify -- were found in two cages in a back storage room and in buckets in the outside trash bin. The three found in cages still had water; Brzezinski said they either starved to death or were sick.

Two dead cichlids, a type of fish, were found floating in one tank and other dead fish had been dumped in the trash.

"We take any neglect of any type of animal seriously," Brzezinski said. "It's no different than a dog or a cat case. These animals weren't properly cared for."

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_14798585

[mike_c]

1. pigs....

:grr:

[n2doc]

2. I say we chain them to a steel post in the store

and leave them a pocket knife. Then lock up the store and don't come back for 3 months...

[Lance_Boyle]

3. Waiting for the first 'they were just fish/rodents' post.

What a horrible way for those animals to die. I guess there is a line to be drawn somewhere, though. I would not have been upset by the story had it just been a box of feeder crickets or mealworms. Most are probably not upset by cruel morons killing fish. Or maybe even rodents. I mean, I *eat* fish, and have killed plenty. But for a purpose. And hopefully more humanely than this.