Dan Moulton has raised chinchillas, those cute little Andean furballs, in southern Minnesota for more than 50 years.
Moulton is licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and sells the chinchillas as pets, breeding stock and research animals. He used to sell them for pelts, but no longer.
The USDA license means he has regular visits from inspectors with the department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). The inspectors are supposed to ensure the Moulton Chinchilla Ranch is a healthy and safe place for the big-eared rodents.
The inspectors visited twice in 2017 and both times found sick or injured chinchillas in need of veterinary care. But the public would have to do some digging to know that. The inspection reports, posted online, have the name and the address of the facility blacked out.
The public used to be able to find that information online. But early this year, the agency stopped publishing reports on inspections and enforcement of breeders, zoos, stables and other facilities licensed under the Animal Welfare Act and Horse Protection Act.
Some of those records reappeared on the USDA website in August, but the names of individuals were no longer available. There aren't many chinchilla dealers in Rochester, Minn., so that was the only way I could find Moulton.
Moulton said from his office last week (he's also a lawyer) that he is happy about the change. He had nothing nice to say about USDA inspectors, whom he said exaggerated problems found during inspections: "Those two characters are going overboard." He has the same contempt for animal welfare groups who use the records to target animal operations. "Do you know how many nuts are out there?" he said.
He rattled off examples of animal welfare activists who have broken into farms and released thousands of minks into the wild. No one has tried to free his chinchillas, but he did get an unwelcome call once from an animal rights group.
