Animal rescue volunteers this week found more than 400 guinea pigs at a South Los Angeles home, living in \u201cunsanitary and overcrowded\u201d conditions. <\/p>\n
Now they\u2019re asking the public to help foster or adopt some of the rescued animals or to provide donations that will fund medical support and supplies.<\/p>\n
Southern California Guinea Pig Rescue said volunteers found hundreds of guinea pigs on Thursday evening in what they described as a \u201cdistressing and alarming\u201d scene. <\/p>\n
Some of the animals were dead. Others had medical problems including ringworm and open wounds. The guinea pigs, some pregnant or newborns, didn\u2019t have enough water or proper food.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the tenant had stated, she was unable to feed the population of guinea pigs, the rescue team\u2019s initial objective was to provide food, evaluate potential health issues, and begin to source overflow rescues and responsible homes,\u201d the group said in a press release. A group spokesperson could not be reached for comment Saturday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Volunteers visited the property to assess the severity of the situation and obtain an approximate head count of guinea pigs.<\/p>\n
(Southern California Guinea Pig Rescue)<\/p>\n
The guinea pigs, which eat grass hay, vegetables and pellets, were living off of corn husks. A video<\/a> posted on YouTube showed guinea pigs scurrying around the residence, some hiding in beer boxes or crowded in a cage without food. <\/p>\n The group contacted the tenant after learning from an email from a Los Angeles Animal Services coordinator that she had hoarded 200 guinea pigs at her home and faced eviction if she didn\u2019t relocate them by Saturday. But it turned out the woman had a lot more guinea pigs than was described. <\/p>\n The group said they\u2019re concerned after being told that a Los Angeles Animal Services lieutenant visited the property and determined the guinea pigs were healthy and had enough shelter, food and water. A representative for Los Angeles Animal Services could not be reached for comment Saturday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe urge City officials and the animal welfare community to fully investigate this case and improve systemic response protocols. Shelter officials must be accountable if anything happens to these animals,\u201d the press release said.<\/p>\n The group along with the Rescue Garden, Wee Companions and Vegas Friends of Guinea Pigs Rescue removed 33 guinea pigs. They prioritized animals that were pregnant, newborns, those suffering from health conditions and others that were the most vulnerable. <\/p>\n The Southern California Guinea Pig Rescue group can be reached at socalguineapigrescue@gmail.com or through its website<\/a>. Contact information for other animal rescue groups is also listed in the group\u2019s press release<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Animal rescue volunteers this week found more than 400 guinea pigs at a South Los Angeles home, living…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":77003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[4749,1582,276,53216,12495,53218,5169,53214,2961,224,5337,53220,25767,6291,10426,53215,53219,53217,23862,16576],"class_list":{"0":"post-77002","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-animal","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-comment-saturday","12":"tag-condition","13":"tag-enough-water","14":"tag-group","15":"tag-guinea-pig","16":"tag-la","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-losangeles","19":"tag-medical-problem","20":"tag-newborn","21":"tag-other","22":"tag-press-release","23":"tag-proper-food","24":"tag-responsible-home","25":"tag-south-los-angeles-home","26":"tag-tenant","27":"tag-vegetable"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114883429932047038","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}