CHATFIELD, Minn. – The organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals escalated its campaign to close a Chatfield chinchilla farm. A truck-mounted billboard was paraded through Chatfield and the Fillmore County county seat Preston – and also Rochester, The billboard called on Dan Moulton and his wife, Sue, who own the farm, to shut it down and release neglected chinchillas to organizations equipped to provide them with humane care. PETA claimed that Moulton chinchillas were denied veterinary care for abscessed and ruptured mammary tissue and protruding or pus-filled eyes, among other serious conditions. According to, PETA, one chinchilla died after being deprived of veterinary care for a raw, bloody wound. Another died after Moulton’s dog attacked her. She suffered overnight without care, PETA said. Responding to PETA, Moulton said he cleans out the gutter that runs underneath the cages daily. He said he feeds and checks on the chinchillas in the morning before work in Rochester and then again when he gets home later in the day. The watering system is automated, so all he has to do is drain it on the weekends and fill it with fresh water, he said.
PETA takes to streets. Visually inspired activists first did a video on animal treatment at Chatfield, then mounted a billboard on a truck to underscore its point.