Chinchilla Rescue In 80+ Degree Heat

Danbury, CT douchebag leaves chinchillas out to die, prompting an unplanned rescue

Chinchilla Rescue

To the asshole who left the two dehydrated chinchillas out by his garbage cans, you, sir, are a disgrace.

I live in Connecticut where the weather has been unpredictable and unrelenting this summer. On Wednesday, August 28 (an 85 degree day), a neighbor drove up saying he had seen an animal in a small cage by the side of the road with an unreadable "free" sign written in pen. My first thought was, "And you didn't take the animal ...why?" Dude has a big enough car and claims to love animals.

Obviously I had to go check it out.

One of the chinchillas the day he was rescued

I cannot believe how filthy these animals were. The exercise wheel was caked in fur and feces, and the cage, instead of being the blue that that it should have been, was brown. The chinchillas themselves were dirty, matted, and incredibly sluggish. So I did what any reasonable animal-lover would do: I stuck that shitty, grimy, smelly cage in the back of my car and drove around for two hours with the A/C blasting to cool them down.

The chinchillas' cage

Chinchillas are native to the high altitudes of the Andes Mountains in Western South America, and thus have a very dense fur coat (you may have heard of chinchillas due to their being bred specifically to be made into fur coats for humans). This habitat allows for them to escape the heat of the day by hiding in rock crevices; chinchillas cannot sweat, and if temperatures go above 80 degrees, they can suffer from heatstroke.

I mean, LOOK at this!

I brought the chinchillas to a shelter where I know that they could be taken care of. An ASPCA member who has rescued over 300 chinchillas looked them over and said they were in the worst condition she had ever seen and a had clearly been mistreated.

Well. I am angry. I am livid, in fact. If I hadn't come along, what would have happened?

I'd like to know - what would YOU do in this situation?