/rant on
I love keeping fish. I hate to see fish mistreated as much as the next guy. But, I am going to say something that has been eating at me. Flame on. Fish are fish. Money is money. Stores like Wal-Mart want money. People want bettas because they are "Fighting Fish". People want to be entertained by the fish they buy. They also want the tank to be appealing to look at. So people are going to buy the "betta vases" and "betta bowls". No amount of griping about it is going to make them stop selling/buying. Wal-mart cares about one thing. Money. People, in general, care about the common betta about as much as they do a lizard that wanders into thier home in the summertime. Half of the general populace will pick the lizard up by the tail, (which any reptile person knows not to ever do) and the other half will stomp on it, rather then try to pick it up at all. Do I go gripe about it on a reptile board, where people KNOW not to pick a lizard up by his tail? No. What difference would it make? The people picking the lizards up like that are not going to visit that forum, because they dont give a ****e. Does anyone else see my point? If not, so be it, but I tire of reading posts about people complaining about fish conditions at LFS #9001. Yes, they are terrible, no they are not going to be better after you gripe here and write your letter. So dont bother. Just do not patronize that store/section, and go on about your business. Griping about the conditions in 1 of the 5000+ Wally Worlds in the USA, in which they turn huge profits selling 4 cent bettas for $5.99, + 43 cent tanks for $9.99, isnt going to make one of the largest retailers in the world stop selling them. Or fix the conditions. Or train the employees properly. Period. So just stop eating bandwith posting about it. Please.
/end rant
That being said, i want to appoligize to the OP briefly. This rant is not targeted at you specifically, just to people in general. And, for the record, you want to see animal cruelty, you should check out the living conditions of a chicken/egg farm sometime. I did, and it quite literally turned my stomach. Is it going to change? Sadly, never.