date: 04.07.2003
entitled: "Furry, Undeserved Prisoners"

upon entering our little, local pet supply store in astoria, one probably wouldn't have too many qualms with the place, other than its rather ghetto atmosphere. if you peer to the back of the long, narrow store, bubbling fish tanks catch your eye. they have a decent supply of pet products, although i noticed they didn't carry any eco-friendly, or bunny-friendly for that matter, bedding for small animals. the stuff that smells strongly of pine or aspen, has additives which are eventually lethal to a small animal's respiratory and kidney functions - everyone knows that! their stock of bagged hay for rabbits was quite lack luster as well, but at least they had ONE bag for us to buy, thus delaying our necessity to visit a pet supply store a few more days. these facts should have been more of a tell-tale sign to me, that this pet store doesn't know anything about animals, nor do they care about them. but the signs didn't clue me in - not until i rounded

the small aisle and happened to look upstairs, where my eyes met a rather small aquarium containing a not-so-small rabbit. concern and curiosity propelled me forward, my eyes on the

rabbit the entire time, slowly up the staircase, which had a sign 'birds' above it. as i stepped upon the upper floor, the foul smell of poorly cared-for, caged animals hit my nose, and i looked in horror at not one or two, but 5 rabbits enclosed behind the glass of fish aquariums, their noses twitching with curiosity and fright, and their little paws slipping on the glass beneath them. they were all beautiful rabbits, different sizes and colors, yet they had such dull looks in their eyes. i wondered where these terrible people had found these rabbits, when was the last time they had vegetables, and how long they had been stuffed into these capsules which were, at best, three times their size. they had no room to hop, let alone to even stand on their hind feet! i quickly grew more

and more disturbed, until i was furiously taking note of every detail of their entrapment - no food was in sight, dusty lids on the aquariums, nothing to chew on, no hay, little water, too little bedding on the floors so they couldn't get a firm grip while sitting, and two rabbits were held within one aquarium, which had the width of the two rabbits if they were to lye side-by-side. i felt like my heart would literally explode. a man came up to me, asking if i needed any help, and i could only mutter that these rabbits needed larger spaces to live. i said it about 2 or 3 times, to which he simply nodded. his indifference infuriated me even more, so i ran down to stairs, where joe was waiting on the lower level. he had witnessed this entire thing, and was trying to shoo me out of the store and calm me down before i let loose on these people. the man at the counter had the gall to tell me i needed to ask for assistance before heading upstairs, to which i replied, the sign says 'birds', so i thought it was a

customer area. i then realized that they must know they are committing animal cruelty, if they have the area chained off from customers. how many pet stores which carry animals have the animals chained off from customer attention? it's bad enough that ANY pet stores carry and sell animals as a

commodity, but to hide them from people in order to hide their inhumane practices?! jesus christ! on the way home, joe and i discussed the necessity for people to have a license to sell animals, narrowing it down to breeders and shelters, so the practice can be more closely monitored, and animals will be taken care of properly. i also decided to call the ASPCA about this place. Those rabbits either need to be confiscated and adopted by rabbit guardians, or at least given proper care with larger cages with hay, food, and water. i'd prefer the former, and i hope the ASPCA prefers it too. i think of those rabbits every time i feed or play with phoebe now, to the point where a scenario pops into my head to break in and rescue them. i'm not going to risk getting arrested or shot over this, but i can easily picture 5 more bunnies hopping around the apartment. shhhh, don't tell joe!!

song stuck in my head:
Quality Control - Jurassic 5

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