Despite the fact that Petco and PetSmart agreed long ago not to sell dogs and cats due to ethical concerns having to do with breeding conditions and shelter killing, both chains continue to sell exotic bird species. According to PetSmart's own website, it is even still selling parrots, a practice that even Petco agreed to stop doing in 2005! Selling live birds is an appalling practice that results in the suffering of countless individual birds and the destruction of ecosystems and wilderness. Please join us in urging Petco and PetSmart to stop selling live birds immediately.

Birds commonly sold as pets such as canaries, cockatiels, conures, doves, finches, and parakeets are members of various species of wild animals who are not truly domesticated. Accordingly, these birds lack familiarity and comfortability with the conditions of human guardianship, and have needs that cannot be satisfied in captivity. They are commonly denied the opportunities to engage in natural behaviors, including flight, foraging, socialization, mating and nest building. This can lead to extreme frustration and abnormal behaviors, including self-harm.

Both Petco and PetSmart are publicly traded companies beholden to the market and driven to prioritize their stock prices over all else. In stores, birds are kept in small, crowded cages, denied veterinary care, and left in the hands of employees most often lacking any specialized training or species-specific knowledge whatsoever.

Most birds sold in pet stores today were raised in large scale breeding facilities, also known as bird mills. Birds in such facilities are either “breeders” who are artificially inseminated and kept perpetually pregnant, or are chicks who are torn away from their parents and sold as quickly as possible to anyone willing to buy them. Living conditions are typically terrible and mortality rates are extremely high.

Birds for sale who enter the pet trade may also have been captured in the wild. Not only is the capture of birds from the wild traumatic to the individuals captured and their networks of birds of which they are a part, but the extraction of birds from the wild is destructive to their native ecosystems, leading to an impoverished state known as “empty forest syndrome.”

Lastly, the same truism applies to birds as to all other animals who you wish to share your life with. If you want the company of an animal companion, please always adopt from a shelter. Shelters have finite space, and are constantly receiving new animals, and those who are not adopted are killed in any number of terrible ways such as lethal injection, poison gas, decompression, drowning, electrocution, and sometimes even shooting. Overcrowding and subsequent killing is most well known in the case of cats and dogs, but shelters also house and kill large numbers of rabbits, rats, mice, hamsters, gerbils, iguanas, lizards, fish and a wide assortment of birds, so please, instead of buying birds or other animals, go online to see what animals there are at local shelters or through animal specific rescue organizations.

Sadly, the demand for birds continues to fuel the legal and illegal trades causing both individuals and wild populations immeasurable harm. If you feel strongly that you must become a bird guardian, please, adopt through a rescue. Whatever you do, do not shop for live birds at Petco or PetSmart or other retail or online stores, and let them know you won't be doing much of your shopping there until they stop selling live birds. 

Join us in urging Petco and PetSmart stop selling live birds immediately by calling, posting on social media and sending our letter!

1. Please call both stores.

Petco

877-738-6742
From 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. PST, 7 days a week.
Press 1 for English, 2 for Spanish
Then press 0 to speak with an agent

Petsmart

888-839-9638
8 a.m. - 9 p.m. EST
Press 3
Then press 2 to speak to an agent

Please let the representative know that you would like their store to stop selling live birds.

Some talking points you can mention:

Birds sold as pets are members of species of wild animals who are not domesticated. Basic instincts that are commonly denied to captive birds include flight, foraging, socialization, mating and nest building.
In your stores, birds are kept in small, crowded cages, denied veterinary care, and left in the hands of employees with no specialized training or knowledge whatsoever.
Most birds sold in pet stores today were raised in large scale breeding facilities, in which living conditions are terrible and mortality rates are high.
2. Make a comment on the Petco and Petsmart Facebook pages.

You can use this text for Facebook:

Please stop selling live birds now!

Birds sold at your pet stores are members of species of wild animals who don't belong in captivity, where their needs aren't met and they're commonly denied opportunities to engage in natural behaviors, such as flight, foraging, socialization, mating and nest building.

In your stores and at the mills in which they're hatched and raised, birds are kept in small, crowded cages, denied veterinary care , and left in the hands of employees with no specialized training or species-specific knowledge whatsoever.

Most birds sold in pet stores today were raised in large scale breeding facilities, in which living conditions are terrible and mortality rates high.

Morever, PetSmart, according to your own website you are still selling parrots, while Petco stopped doing that in 2005.

I beg you, please stop selling live birds in your stores!

You can use this text for Twitter:

@Petco @PetSmart @RCoughlinPetco Please stop selling live birds now! #SaveTheBirds #ExoticBirds #StopPetcoBirdSales #StopPetSmartBirdSales

3. Please fill out the form on this page to the CEOs of Petco and PetSmart to ask that they stop selling live birds.

Submit our alert to immediately deliver your non official comments to:
Ron Coughlin — Petco Chief Executive Officer
J.K. Symancyk — PetSmart Chief Executive Officer 

Source for this entire page : idausa.org/campaign/wild-animals-and-habitats/latest-news/petco-petsmart-stop-bird-sale/