Following discussions with PETA, CBL & Associates Properties has enacted a policy that prohibits companies such as Pocket Pets—which sells sugar gliders to customers who are typically unprepared to provide the care that these "fragile animals" need to survive—from setting up pop-up kiosks in CBL's shopping malls throughout the Southeast and Midwest, said PETA officials.
"By banning Pocket Pets, CBL & Associates is making a huge difference for tiny sugar gliders, who suffer immensely when they're purchased on a whim," says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. "PETA's message to shoppers is never to buy exotic animals as 'pets'—and to stay away from the businesses that sell them."
As PETA pointed out in letters to CBL and at the company's 2014 annual meeting, CBL was the last remaining major shopping mall management group in the U.S. to still host Pocket Pets. These kiosks sell sugar gliders which are tiny nocturnal tree-dwellers.
In 2005, CBL pledged not to host wild-animal exhibitors on its properties.