In 2014, a PETA investigator visited Valley View Chinchilla Ranch, a California-based breeding and fur farm. The facility masqueraded as a breeder of “pets,” despite slaughtering, skinning, and selling the pelts of any chinchillas who supposedly did not “work out” as companions, even going as far as to hide its involvement in the fur industry from the public.



Chinchillas are social animals who naturally live in herds of up to 100 animals and who enjoy burrowing, climbing, and playing. At Valley View, they were locked in tiny steel cages—often in solitary confinement—with little enrichment, space, or accommodation for their natural behaviors.