I HIGHLY commend you for that. I have become a major thorn in the side of several places who sell fish - just trying to get them to treat their fishes better.
Here's something I posted in another topic on this forum about one visit to WM, the one that sparked my obsession with fishy policing:
Just got back from WalMart, I had to get some silk plants for my boys.
Here is a brief summary of the trip:
- 1 tank of beautiful (probably 12 or so in the tank) silver tetras COVERED in ich, every single one of them
- 1 tank where one pleco was dead & upside down - another one had latched onto him and had eaten a good bit of him
- 1 tank where a fish (so decayed & eaten that i couldn't identify) was laying upside down and was being feasted on
- 1 tank w/a ghostly white dead pleco bobbing around the bottom as other fish swam by
- 1 tank where a beautiful fish (not sure what it was) but it was the shape of a cichlid, but a little taller, and kind of a seafoam green/black/orange spotty color with feelers hanging down was laying on his side dead
- 1 tank where a poor little goldfish was struggling to get off the bottom of the tank
- 1 betta cup with a betta in it that had some sort of parasite so bad it looked like his gills were 2 large scabs
- 2 betta cups (each containing a female betta) with pretty little gals in them, but both of them were floating in there nose down, tail up
(it took EVERYTHING in me not to buy a few tanks and take all the bettas home and nurse them back to health) sad.gif
I went up to the first WM employee I could find and he rolled his eyes when I asked him if I could show him something in one of the fish tanks. I took him over and pointed out the ich tank, and his response was (and I'm quoting) "Well I dont' know what to do about it..." I turned around and gave him the "you've GOT to be kidding me look... He said "Everyone here that works with the fish left at 5, I have no idea if they've been treating them or what"... then I said "you might want to take a look in the rest of the tanks then - you DO know what to do with dead fish, don't you?" and I turned around and walked away.
I hurried to my car and then I whipped out my cell phone and called the store and spoke to a manager, and told her the entire story. She told me that she had held a meeting with the fish person just today, and that person had left at 2 or 3. She said they clean their tanks daily, to which I said "Um, I highly doubt it because of the amount of dead decaying fish in your tanks says otherwise, and did you happen to notice the ich on the tetras? How about the bettas? There are at least 3 that are dying, probably more. What's your routine with them?" She said they change their water out every other day, which i was surprised at given the amount of filth that was in their jars. I told her that they should be done every day, and she might want to check the one guy I purposely set aside from the others to see if they could do anything with his "scabby" gills.
She said she'd personally go over there and have a look.
Yesterday I stumbled across a post from someone in this forum that said they were excited to be actually going to work at WalMart in the fish department, and this person sounded like they'd do a good job of making sure the fish were taken care of right, and sold correctly. Too bad not all WalMarts require that responsible people are required to work in the fish dept. sad.gif
The one I was at is in Madison, WI.
Again, I highly commend you and your supervisor for taking good care of your WM fishes. I wish every WM made it at LEAST a qualification to know something... SOMETHING about fish. Keep up the good work.
some girls had no tails and their bodys were being nipped. the girl there didnt even care, not that im surprised. next time ill have to restrain myself from looking, as it really consumes me.
I've rescused some bettas from other Walmarts before as well and I cannot even comprehend how or why those employees let the fish get that way. It's disgusting.
/www.manchesteronline.co.uk/news/s/1...or_cruelty.html
