Dear Friend,

PETA’s breaking undercover investigation into Moulton Chinchilla Ranch (MCR)—a massive breeding mill that kept approximately 1,000 chinchillas in a filthy shed, slated to be sold to laboratories and into the pet trade—found that these highly sensitive prey animals were denied not only everything natural and important to them but also the basic necessities of life, including effective veterinary care for chronic infections and severe, life-threatening injuries that caused them to suffer and even die.

Based on PETA’s evidence, law-enforcement officials executed a search warrant at MCR and opened a criminal investigation.

One chinchilla, named Charlene, had a mutilated foot, but the breeder denied her veterinary care for this excruciating injury, which left a bloody stump with bones exposed. He shrugged off Chelsea’s severely injured eye, which protruded from its socket. Other chinchillas’ eyes were severely swollen or filled with pus.

The breeder said that he killed chinchillas—including one who had a bulging mass the size of a ping pong ball under the chin—by breaking their necks. But a chinchilla with a raw, open wound and another who was attacked by a dog were both left to die.

PETA’s investigator found that these naturally active animals were stuffed into cramped, rusted cages in a shed reeking of ammonia. The severely stressful conditions led chinchillas to mutilate themselves and others—one young animal’s ears were nearly chewed off.

You can make a tremendous difference for chinchillas languishing in breeding mills. Please, take a moment today to urge MCR’s customers to stop purchasing these animals.