San Jose, Calif. - PETA, which owns 120 shares of eBay stock, has submitted a shareholder resolution urging the company to stop selling cats and dogs on its affiliated Chinese Web site, Tom Online.

PETA’s resolution points out that eBay’s online policy states, “eBay generally does not allow the listing of live animals or pets on eBay,” and that eBay’s Code of Business Conduct and Ethics states, “We do business according to the highest ethical and legal standards.” Despite this, eBay continues to list and sell cats and dogs in a country where animal protection laws are virtually non-existent. Millions of cats and dogs in China are routinely killed in extremely cruel ways–they are bludgeoned to death as a method of “population control” and are also beaten, strangled, boiled, and skinned alive for their fur and flesh.

PETA’s resolution points out that users selling cats and dogs on eBay’s affiliated Chinese Web site have posted photos showing animals in cramped, tiny spaces and chained to cages on the streets. The photos also showed puppies confined to wire-bottomed cages (which can injure their tender feet) and kept in dark cages with bone-dry water bowls–confirming PETA’s fears that many of the animals suffer even before they are sold.

“Animals aren’t commodities to be auctioned off to the highest bidder,” says PETA Director Daphna Nachminovitch. “Selling cats and dogs in China virtually condemns them to miserable lives and excruciating deaths. We urge eBay to do right by the animals–and live up to its own code of ethics–by ending its sales of cats and dogs in China.”

PETA’s statement to eBay shareholders is available upon request. For more information, please visit PETA.org.

Posted: 12|28|07 at 9:26 am. Filed under: Press Release.