The free advertising site Gumtree is one of the few major websites that still allows people to post adverts for animals. Ebay banned such ads a long time ago with a few very limited exceptions, Facebook did the same last year and Freecycle doesn’t even allow people to rehome their pets through its site.
Gumtree is a different story. It has an entire section devoted to pets for sale, with a quick glance showing over 13,000 adverts, mostly for puppies but also for kittens, rabbits and exotic animals such as pythons.
Allowing such adverts gives irresponsible amateur breeders and puppy mills a platform. With hundreds of thousands of animals languishing in animal sanctuaries, the last thing Gumtree should be doing is encouraging yet more breeding, not to mention that some of these breeders may be abusing their animals.
Tell Gumtree to stop allowing adverts for pets.
We the undersigned ask that Gumtree stop allowing people to advertise pets for sale, which just encourages irresponsible breeding and sometimes animal abuse. At the moment, there are thousands of advertisements for puppies, kittens, rabbits and exotic pets.
Since Gumtree has no way of vetting either seller or buyer, it is highly irresponsible to allow these adverts to be posted. Amateur breeders should not have such an easy way to make money. Other sites, including Facebook and eBay, have already banned or greatly restricted the sale of animals on their sites.
We ask that Gumtree show responsibility in its role as a large community advertising platform and follow suit immediately.
Thank you for your attention.
