Petco Beta Fish Protest

Name: Petco Beta Fish Protest
Start: 2025-08-24T11:30:00-04:00
End: 2025-08-24T13:00:00-04:00
Location: Petco - Virginia Beach So

Schedule

Sun Aug 24 2025 at 11:30 am to 01:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

Petco - Virginia Beach So | Virginia Beach, VA

Sunday, August 24th.
Time: 12pm-2pm.
Parking: anywhere in lot.
Materials provided but you can bring your own signs if you’d like and megaphones.
When betta fish are shipped to countries around the world, they're commonly packed without any food. The journey can take several days. A worker told the eyewitness that a tranquilizer is added to the water so the fish won't eat their own tails.
Many bettas die before reaching their intended destination. According to one worker, a company that supplies Petco ships 100,000 bettas per week to the U.S., and up to 1,000 of them die before they reach distributers. PETA's previous investigations of the betta trade have uncovered rampant neglect. At Petco stores around the U.S., dead and dying betta fish were found floating in tiny cups of contaminated water, and some were left to suffer from painful or debilitating health conditions. Multiple Petco employees admitted that the process of transporting bettas to stores is so stressful that the fish often get sick and die shortly after their arrival, noting that the small cups they're confined to makes them susceptible to health problems.
Bettas are vibrant, complex animals with specific needs. To be healthy, each one needs a minimum of 2.5 gallons of clean, filtered, flowing water. Betta fish arrive at a Petco store. Before reaching distributors, bettas are shipped internationally by air, which can take several days, without any food. A worker told PETA Asia's eyewitness that they add a tranquilizer to the water so the fish won't eat their own tails—a standard practice in the pet industry.