Noelluene
Active Member
So recently I was at some exotic pet stores in my area picking up some supplies when I overheard a conversation between a staff of the shop and someone who was asking about why his tortoise wasn't eating. Intrigued, I eavesdropped on the conversation a bit longer out of curiosity. Now, I have already known for a long time that these reptile shops treated their animals poorly. Crowded enclosures, lack of any temperature regulation, filthy water and diseased animals were all too common. Many of these shopkeepers have also been very dishonest about the animals they are selling, claiming that you can keep a pair of fully grown RES in one of these horrible plastic reptile cages with no filter. But to my dismay I decided to listen to this conversation anyway, and it went something like this:
Man: So my baby tortoise hasn't been eating lately, is there anything I can do about it? I think it is sick.
Shopkeeper: What temperature are you keeping it at?
Man: I've been keeping it warm, around 37. (degrees Celsius, which is around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit) (this guy is probably trying to make turtle soup by blasting a sick baby tortoise with heat)
The man's kid: Oh we've also bought some medicine for it.
Shopkeeper: Did you buy it from our store?
Man: No we bought it online. It still hasn't eaten after we gave it the medicine. (God knows what that meant)
Shopkeeper: Well then I don't know what it is. But you can buy this medicine here, which improves appetite for tortoises. It is very good. Just soak the tortoise in this medicine for a couple hours every day for a week then it should be fine. Look it is very cheap as well.
*after some talk about the price the man buys it
This conversation left me in shock of how bad some of the "advice" these shopkeepers give can be. It was clear to me that both these people had no idea what on earth they were talking about, and the shopkeeper only cared about selling the product. And it's not just this particular store. Many reptiles shops here in SE Asia do this practice where they advertise turtles and tortoises as very cheap and low-maintenance pets, which results in most of these animals dying. Then the people who bought the turtle originally comes back to complain, in which then the shopkeepers sell them this medicine or whatever, saying that it died because they didn't use this medicine. Ofc, the turtle still dies, and so the shopkeepers sell them a new medicine and so on and so fourth. A lot of these shopkeepers actually have next to no knowledge about these animals, and even refer to RES to their local colloquial name "Brazillian turtle", which then makes people believe that RES are from Brazil... In infuriates me to no end knowing that these people capitalize o children wanting a pet and the fact that most people not knowing a thing about keeping turtles. Treat this as a warning, but never listen to any of the "advice" these shopkeepers give. Especially when they treat their own turtles at the stores so terribly. This is a huge problem in SE Asia and in my local area due to the general lack of knowledge about turtle keeping and the lack of regulation entirely.
I'll go back to that place again later this week, I'll try to take some pictures of the conditions the animals are housed in to show how poorly the turtles and tortoises are treated. This thread will be updated when I post the pictures.
Man: So my baby tortoise hasn't been eating lately, is there anything I can do about it? I think it is sick.
Shopkeeper: What temperature are you keeping it at?
Man: I've been keeping it warm, around 37. (degrees Celsius, which is around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit) (this guy is probably trying to make turtle soup by blasting a sick baby tortoise with heat)
The man's kid: Oh we've also bought some medicine for it.
Shopkeeper: Did you buy it from our store?
Man: No we bought it online. It still hasn't eaten after we gave it the medicine. (God knows what that meant)
Shopkeeper: Well then I don't know what it is. But you can buy this medicine here, which improves appetite for tortoises. It is very good. Just soak the tortoise in this medicine for a couple hours every day for a week then it should be fine. Look it is very cheap as well.
*after some talk about the price the man buys it
This conversation left me in shock of how bad some of the "advice" these shopkeepers give can be. It was clear to me that both these people had no idea what on earth they were talking about, and the shopkeeper only cared about selling the product. And it's not just this particular store. Many reptiles shops here in SE Asia do this practice where they advertise turtles and tortoises as very cheap and low-maintenance pets, which results in most of these animals dying. Then the people who bought the turtle originally comes back to complain, in which then the shopkeepers sell them this medicine or whatever, saying that it died because they didn't use this medicine. Ofc, the turtle still dies, and so the shopkeepers sell them a new medicine and so on and so fourth. A lot of these shopkeepers actually have next to no knowledge about these animals, and even refer to RES to their local colloquial name "Brazillian turtle", which then makes people believe that RES are from Brazil... In infuriates me to no end knowing that these people capitalize o children wanting a pet and the fact that most people not knowing a thing about keeping turtles. Treat this as a warning, but never listen to any of the "advice" these shopkeepers give. Especially when they treat their own turtles at the stores so terribly. This is a huge problem in SE Asia and in my local area due to the general lack of knowledge about turtle keeping and the lack of regulation entirely.
I'll go back to that place again later this week, I'll try to take some pictures of the conditions the animals are housed in to show how poorly the turtles and tortoises are treated. This thread will be updated when I post the pictures.
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