(US) Community pressure leads to Walmart changing new website

Online pet sales are a serious problem, perpetrated by hundreds, if not thousands of companies that seek to to make a profit selling puppies, kittens, birds and other animals. Ads can, and are, placed by families whose dog had a litter, and by large-scale breeders, or puppy mills. Some websites are set up just for pet ads; a quick search for pets online brings up thousands of ads. It’s a direct correlation to pet overpopulation and euthanasia.

Last week, Wal-Mart launched a free online classifieds website, walmart.oodle.com. Suddenly, thirty million ads, reaching five million consumers each month were available through Wal-Mart. This included tens of thousands of ads offering puppies, kittens, birds, horses, and every other animal imaginable for sale.

But, it turns out, Wal-Mart is different than the thousands of print and web outlets that help people sell their pets. Just days after the Wal-Mart Classifieds launched, people began contacting the corporate office with their concerns about the “pet for sale” ads. By last Friday, just days after the site launched, Wal-Mart had removed all the pet ads from their website.

The response from Wal-Mart reads, in part:

Given the current "beta" status of Walmart.com classifieds, we will continue to make changes to the service over the coming months. Based on the feedback you and others provided, we have removed the pets category while we evaluate how to improve pet listings in ways that serve our local communities along with the well being of animals.

Wal-Mart’s decision is one of the most humane actions a large corporation has taken. While thousands of other companies allow pet sale ads to be posted with abandon, Wal-Mart put their corporate foot down.

Reference: http://network.bestfriends.org

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