[Animals] Animals Meant for Adoption May Have Been Turned Into Reptile Food

[Teacher™]

The fate of more than 250 rabbits, guinea pigs and rats remains unknown more than three months after they were sent to a humane society in Arizona.

When the San Diego Humane Society in California shipped more than 300 rabbits, guinea pigs and rats to the Humane Society of Southern Arizona in Tucson over the summer, it believed that they would be adopted as pets. But most of the animals may have met a grislier fate, which has led to outrage, anguish and a police investigation. According to officials at both humane societies, the 323 animals arrived in Tucson on Aug. 7 but were not taken into the shelter there. Instead, the Humane Society of Southern Arizona transferred the animals to a man named Colten Jones, who runs a business in the Phoenix area called the Fertile Turtle, which sells live and frozen animals for reptile feed, both humane societies said inOfficials at both humane societies said they were investigating who arranged the transfer and what, exactly, had happened to the animals. The police said that they were also investigating the case as a “possible fraud” but that no one had been charged. But a piece of possible evidence about the fate of the animals emerged this month when a Tucson news station, KVOA, reported on a text message that Mr. Jones sent on Aug. 8, a day after the animals arrived in Tucson. “Do you have the ability to freeze off a bunch of guinea pigs and or rabbits?” Mr. Jones wrote to another man, who did not want to be publicly identified, KVOA reported. “I don’t have the manpower or labor to be able to do it in time for the show and it’s too much time for me.” The show apparently referred to an upcoming reptile show in Pomona, Calif., according to KVOA. Mr. Jones did not respond to phone and text messages seeking comment. The Southern Arizona and San Diego humane societies said in their joint statement that they were outraged by “this latest piece of information that clearly indicates Mr. Jones’s intention to use these animals as feed instead of finding them adoptive homes.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/21/us/humane-society-san-diego-tucson.html