Activists from Animal Rights Cambridge held a protest at Pets at Home, The Beehive Centre, Cambridge over their sale of reptiles. The campaigners handed out leaflets to a receptive public about the reptile trade getting consumers thinking about their choices.

Reptiles are not good 'pets'. According to the Animal Protection Agency (APA) “Reptiles, unlike mammals and birds,are not parentally educated. They are born expecting a life in the wild for which they have evolved to cope and find many aspects of captivity highly stressful. This stress can lead to disease, and very often the death of the animal.”

Looking after lizards, supervising snakes and tending to turtles and tortoises is extremely demanding – even for experts. “It’s a sad fact that most people who buy a reptile get more than they bargained for when they realise how time-consuming and expensive it is to try to replicate the animal’s wild environment. As a result, most reptiles die within a year in captivity. Others are neglected or discarded, causing untold misery, and many abandoned reptiles end up in overcrowded rescue shelters.” says the APA.

Security called the Police but they never arrived and all leaflets were given out.

Animal Rights Cambridge opposes the breeding of animals for the pet trade. There are many animals in need of a home and we believe in a exclusively adopt, don't buy approach.