Local Guinea Pig Breeder Charged With Cruelty and Neglect After Tip From PETA
For Immediate Release:
November 30, 2022
Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382
After PETA notified the Pennsylvania State Police that federal officials had found guinea pigs dead, denied veterinary care, and attacked by other severely stressed animals at David and Malinda King’s local guinea pig–breeding operation, police went to the Kings’ Lancaster County property and yesterday charged Malinda with three counts of cruelty to animals and seven counts of animal neglect.
In July, a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspection of the Kings’ property found dead baby guinea pigs, a dying guinea pig whose leg had been chewed to the bone, filthy enclosures, and guinea pigs denied access to water. In August, inspectors found more dead guinea pigs as well as others denied veterinary care for rampant skin issues, including open, draining lesions. The Kings—who have been cited for more than 50 violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act since 2019—then relinquished their USDA license. When troopers acting on PETA’s tip visited the property later that month, they found even more dead guinea pigs as well as animals denied access to clean water—so they ordered the Kings to remove all guinea pigs from the property. The couple no longer possesses any guinea pigs.
“Vulnerable guinea pigs were left suffering without veterinary care and died at this breeding hellhole,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “This abject neglect warrants a lifelong ban on possessing animals, and it’s why PETA urges everyone never to buy animals from pet stores or breeders and to adopt from shelters instead.”
PETA has released the results of more than a dozen investigations into the pet trade, and each one has uncovered routine neglect and other cruelty, including hamsters, gerbils, rats, and other small animals confined to crowded bins or cages in filthy, windowless warehouses, without access to clean water; small animals screaming while being gassed to death; and rats frozen alive.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
