Alleged animal abuse
Pet shop under scrutiny again after accusations
Levin Pet World is under the microscope for the second time, after a local woman alleged on Facebook last Wednesday that store owners Lucy and Grant Carline had been neglecting their animals.
In a post which had attracted more than 1500 likes and 800 shares, Dana Kidd said she saw dead fish in tanks, rabbits and guinea pigs living in the same area and birds crammed into cages.
She said some of the bird cages were so small that the birds inside were unable to fly, and also photographed pieces of polystyrene in a turtle tank, which she thought could have been ingested by the turtles.
“I was just horrified. I had to walk away. I was just so angry. I was shaking,” she said.
Since the post, a petition to close the store has collected more than 3545 signatures.
After seeing the Facebook post the Carlines said they contacted the SPCA asking for an inspection, hoping to straighten out the allegations.
Mr Carline said the SPCA was going to inspect on Monday but due to a number of calls from the public they arrived unexpectedly on Friday.
While the SPCA inspection didn’t result in the store closing, it did confirm issues of overcrowding.
Manawatu SPCA inspectors Kim Moon and Brett Lahman also confirmed that during a 2015 investigation, the Carlines were given instructions about improving their animal welfare.
Lahman said, although best practice would be to destock, there were no visible animal welfare issues at this stage.
“From what I can see there is no reason to take any action . . . there are no injuries or illnesses apart from the fish with White Spot,” he said.
“Minimal standards are being met but then there is best practice. The Carlines are somewhere in between.”
Lahman said they would continue to keep an eye on the store.
When the Horowhenua Chronicle arrived at Levin Pet
World we observed the store owners cleaning up the animal enclosures, something that Mr Carline said was done every second day.
The turtles were in a different tank than the one pictured in Kidd’s photos, the polystyrene was gone and the turtles had platforms to sit on.
Mr Carline was also painting the bird cages while Mrs Carline cleaned and restocked the dog pens.
When we asked to hold a baby Chinchilla, Mrs Carline pulled it out of the cage by its tail, saying it must be held tightly by the tail because if it was to get away they would never catch it.
The Chinchilla was bred at Shannon animal park Owlcatraz.
When Owlcatraz co-owner Janette Campbell was asked about the handling of the animal she said that she would never treat her Chinchillas like that.
“Maybe it’s ignorance, that they don’t know how to handle an exotic animal,” she said.
In 2015 a petition for the store’s closure collected almost 5000 signatures but came to nothing after the Carlines threatened legal action.
Mr Carline said the result of last week’s SPCA investigation turned up nothing, the same as the last occasion.
He said the people complaining about the store were the “HUHA-type people who don’t want animals in pet shops”.
“This is like what people have done to the circus. There aren’t animals in circuses anymore and at this rate, soon there won’t be animals sold in pet stores,” he said. He was concerned that many who had signed the petition hadn’t done their own investigation.
“It’s easy to make a judgement on social media but better to investigate yourself. Facebook is destructive, and this post is just a lie.”
Mr Carline said he will slightly destock the love birds and guinea pigs, as the SPCA suggested.
“But what really concerns me is the whole mentality towards my shop,” he said. “It is just ignorance.”