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Leopards-a-plenty at Petco?!?


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Posted by Robb Alvey on February 03, 1999 at 03:57:14:

Sarah and I were venturing south today on a first time visit to LLL and Reptile Haven (which were both VERY good quality stores, IMO) and we made a couple of quick stops into the Petco in Lake Forest and in San Clemente. First stop, Lake Forest, we headed over to the reptiles and much to my suprise was about 6 or 7 various sized (4-7 in) Leopard Torts on sale for $79! (In a glass enclosure mixed with Central American Woods, Chinese Box, and another tort species) I thought, that's a fairly odd animal to see at a Petco! I did a little investigation pretending to want to buy and found out they had arrived recently. The information tag reccomended an enclosure at around 82-88 degrees (although the WIDE open enclosure they were in could not have been warmer than 70, all the turtles and torts were hiding the their shells) and it was suggested that I purchase a 20 gallon tank for my 6" tort! I was told they would eat lettuce(not specified), worms, grass, but it was best to feed them "Kaytee land turtle food" which comes free with your tort. As a "new" buyer, I would have left under the 'impression' that my tort would not grow more than 6 inches (although in the fine print, the info tag did say they would grow up to 16"), we would never need anything more than a 20 gal tank, and it could live off of turtle pellets and iceberg lettuce it's whole life. We left and stopped by the San Clemente store and found ANOTHER 6 or 7 Leopard torts, again all of various sizes. I thought "What the hell?" This seems SO wierd for a Petco to have! These were at least kept in decent conditions, seperated from other species, and given what looked like the correct lighting and temp. It turns out, it's a nationwide promotion. All Petco's received about a half dozen animals and will remain at the $79 price for about 3 weeks, then go up to $189. They are all wild caught and they arrived within the last week. I inspected every tortoise (as a concered buyer of course!) and I have to say that they all seemed to be in very good shape (for now). I was surprised, although I would still not advocate buying one of them.

Then sure enough, we get home and there's the add in the Petco flyer stuffed in our mailbox:

"Leopard Tortoise" Hardy and beautiful, 4 to 6 inches in size. The price on this tortoise doesn't get any better. PLUS, receive a FREE Kaytee Land Turtle Food, 5 oz. with your leopard tortoise purchase. A $3.99 VALUE! Sale price $79.99 PLUS FREE FOOD!

Leopards are like the 4th or 5th largest tort and they always seemed like more of a 'specialist' animal, and not something you'd see at a common Petco being promoted nationally. Does this seem weird to anyone else?

Cheers.

--Robb "who is looking forward to two more CAPTIVE BRED" Leopards!


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