Feds Find Neglect and Filth at Local Hedgehog-Breeding Operation
Dozens of Hedgehogs Were Mired in Their Own Waste; PETA Asks Public Never to Buy Animals or Shop at Stores That Sell Them
For Immediate Release:
May 13, 2020
Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382
Recently published U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspection reports of local breeding mill Hedgehogs Northwest reveal that up to 53 hedgehogs were repeatedly found kept in enclosures filled with feces and soiled bedding.
During one inspection, the facility’s owner admitted that it had been at least two weeks since the enclosures had been cleaned. A USDA veterinarian noted accumulated feces on the floor of the room where the animals were kept—marking the seventh time since July 2016 that the owner had been warned to clean her facility. PETA notes that confining hedgehogs in their own feces and urine leaves them susceptible to skin problems.
“Fastidiously clean hedgehogs have been repeatedly left mired in their own waste in this filthy facility,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “PETA is urging people always to adopt animals from shelters and adoption groups and never buy them from stores, which sell animals who were bred and born at mills like this one.”
In light of the findings, PETA has asked City of Everett Lead Prosecutor Leslie Tidball to investigate the breeding mill and, as appropriate, file municipal cruelty-to-animals charges against those responsible for the neglect. The group’s letter is available upon request.
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.
