U.S. Global Exotics, Inc is Shut Down

On December 15, 2009 officials and humane agents from Arlington, Texas performed one of the largest animal confiscations in in history. They seized more than 26,000 animals including wallabies, sloths, ringtail lemurs, kinkajous, coatimundis, agoutis, hedgehogs, chinchillas, hamsters, gerbils, rats, mice, flying squirrels, guinea pigs, sugar gliders, prairie dogs, ferrets, snakes, lizards, turtles, frogs, spiders, crabs, and scorpions from U.S. Global Exotics, Inc.

U.S. Global Exotics, Inc. is a major part of the pet trade. They sell hundreds of thousands of animals to pet stores all over the world. Jasen and Vanessa Shaw are owners and operators of this animal warehouse. An undercover PETA investigator spent seven months working at this warehouse and documented cruel living conditions for the animals, which later lead to the warehouse being shut down and the owners being prosecuted.

Arlington Municipal Judge Michael Smith took all of the 26,000 animals from the Shaw's warehouse. Judge Smith's final decision was to give custody to the city of Arlington. This was the result of a seven-day hearing. During this hearing, lawyers for the exotic animal dealer tried to downplay Jasen and Vanessa Shaw's animal cruelty. The cruelty that they were being charged for included failure to provide animals with food, water, and adequate housing.

The undercover PETA investigator recorded many more acts of cruelty than just deprivation of basic necessities. A staff of only three or four people were in control of caring for all 26,000 animals. They suffered greatly from confinement in crowded and filthy containers. The already crowded containers were filled with soda bottles and milk jugs. The animals that became sick or injured were put in a freezer to freeze to death.

Many of the wild animals that were imported to this warehouse had been in their shipping containers for days or weeks. The shipping containers were often just pillow cases or even soda bottles. During this shipping process the animals were deprived of food, water, heat, and proper ventilation.

Many lizards and turtles were never released from their shipping containers. The whole time they were in there they were deprived of basic necessities. In only one day, 657 turtles were recorded on the facility's dead list. On the day that the seizure happened, decomposed and liquefied remains of over 200 lizards were extracted from a bag. There were at least 200 live lizards in the same bag.

Abuse and neglect comes from people continuing to buy their pets from stores such as PetSmart, PETCO, Petland, and others. All of these stores get their animals from warehouses such as U.S. Global Exotics, Inc.