Cross-posted at the Writing on the Wal.
Sometimes I worry about sounding shrill, but then Wal-Mart just does something so disgusting that letting the story speak for itself still sounds shrill. From the Palm Beach Post via Wal-Mart Watch:
North Palm Beach County shoppers looking for low-priced pants, patio furniture and DVD players will owe an awesome debt to five dead reptiles.
The five gopher tortoises had the bad luck to dig their burrows on the site of a future Wal-Mart in Lake Park. And they paid a ghastly price: The state allowed the store's developers to bury the tortoises alive earlier this year, leaving them to starve or gasp for air for the weeks or months it would take them to die. Wal-Mart paid $11,409 for the permit.
"I was outraged and shocked that they can do this," said Cynthia Pandolfe, a Honolulu resident who was one of many people to receive an e-mail alert from the Humane Society of the United States denouncing the actions of Wal-Mart and the state. "They're basically selling their souls."
"People are upset, even in our agency, at the individual losses of tortoises," said Kim Jamerson, a spokeswoman for the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which issues the burial permits. "Many of our staff have devoted their lives to gopher tortoise conservation."
Wal-Mart Watch explains:
Although the state of Florida forbids landowners from moving the turtles off-site, they can be moved to another location on the same tract of land.
That, of course, would have prevented someone from having the best possible parking space when going to buy cheap plastic crap. Suffocating them was more cost-efficient.
Tell me again how much Wal-Mart loves the environment.
JR