Pus-filled eyes, naked bones found in a supplier’s warehouse Hundreds of animals sold to laboratories
For immediate release:
18 February 2021
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
Rochester, NY – PETA sent a letter to Sarah Mangelsdorf, President of the University of Rochester (UR) this morning, urging them to stop buying chinchillas for experimentation. The letter comes after PETA’s new undercover video investigation at Moulton Chinchilla Ranch, a large breeding factory in Minnesota that supplied chinchillas to UR, showed chinchillas were suffering from open wounds, exposed bones, infections and other painful injuries and untreated ailments. Based on PETA research, local authorities have executed a search warrant and are conducting a criminal investigation.
A PETA witness who worked at the Moulton Chinchilla Ranch has collected video footage and photographs showing that around 1,000 chinchillas indoors were trapped in small open wire cages. The animals were denied veterinary care for an abscess and ruptured breast tissue, bulging or pus-filled eyes, and other serious medical conditions. One chinchilla died due to being deprived of veterinary care due to a raw bloody wound, while another died after being attacked by a breeder’s dog and suffered overnight without care. Another had a large swelling under the chin. The owner of the mill admitted that he killed this and the others by breaking their necks, which did not lead to a painless or quick death.
The Moulton Chinchilla Ranch sells chinchillas to laboratories, and employees associated with UR, as well as the National Institutes of Health, the US Navy, Harvard Medical School, and numerous universities in China, Germany, and the US have experimented with them. Records show that the UR experimenters killed 18 different rodent species, including chinchillas, beavers, mice, gerbils, guinea pigs, hamsters, and marmots, just to harvest their cages.
“At the Moulton Chinchilla Ranch, animals were constantly kept in wire cages, which gave them nowhere to hide (a basic need for predatory animals), made them suffer and die without minimal veterinary assistance, and sold them to laboratories for further harm and killing. “Says PETA’s senior vice president of cruelty investigation Daphne Nakhminovich. “PETA is urging every laboratory that has dealt with this chinchilla factory to stop using these vulnerable animals in experiments.”
PETA has also submitted evidence to the USDA, which has cited more than 100 federal animal welfare violations at the Moulton Chinchilla Ranch since 2013, and filed a formal complaint against the mill in 2018, which is still pending.
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