Latest news with #guineapigs
The Independent
20-07-2025
- General
- The Independent
More than 400 guinea pigs found in hoarder's Los Angeles home, says animal charity
Animal rescue volunteers made a shocking discovery at a home in south Los Angeles; more than 400 guinea pigs were being kept in a hoarder's home in "unsanitary and overcrowded" conditions. The rescue group, Southern California Guinea Pig Rescue, is asking for the public's help adopting or fostering the animals or for donations to fund their recovery and care. The owner of the home where the guinea pigs were found was facing eviction if she did not remove the animals from her house. A Los Angeles Animal Services coordinator emailed the SCGPR to alert them to the situation, hoping they could help. The coordinator believed the woman had approximately 200 guinea pigs in her home, but when volunteers arrived to collect the guinea pigs they found the real number was double the coordinator's estimate. Valerie Warren, chief executive and co-founder of SCGPR, told the Los Angeles Times that they were told the guinea pigs belonged to a previous tenant who moved out but left the animals behind. 'They just continued to breed and breed and the rest of the people in the house were just overwhelmed,' Warren, who visited the home, said. Some of the animals were found sick, injured, dehydrated, malnourished, or dead, but many others were found alive and in need of a home and care. The animals, which typically eat grass hay, vegetables, or animal pellets, were living primarily off of corn husks. Animal shelters are already struggling for space. After the pandemic, many people gave up pets they'd adopted during lock down. Now, the rescue has hundreds of guinea pigs to care for — and it's taking steps to make sure they don't have any more to deal with by separating the male and female guinea pigs. Warren said the animals could number nearly 1,000 by November if they're allowed to continue breeding. 'This is a dire situation,' she said. 'This is just a cycle that's not going to end until these guys are all taken in.' In the meantime, it's unclear if the animals are actually going to be removed from the home. They were reportedly told that an LA Animal Services lieutenant visited the home and determined the animals were healthy and had proper food, water, and shelter — a view the SCGPR does not share. They put out a press release asking the city to take action to protect the animals. 'We urge City officials and the animal welfare community to fully investigate this case and improve systemic response protocols. Shelter officials must be accountable if anything happens to these animals,' the group said in a press statement.
CBS News
19-07-2025
- General
- CBS News
More than 400 guinea pigs found in South Los Angeles home, rescue team asks public for help
An animal advocacy group is asking for the public's help after more than 400 guinea pigs were discovered in a hoarding case in South Los Angeles. According to the Southern California Guinea Pig Rescue, several members of the small animal rescue community were alerted to a hoarding situation by the Los Angeles Animal Services earlier in the week. The service said a member of the public was facing eviction from their home and needed to surrender about 200 guinea pigs. SCGPR contacted the tenant, who said she'd be evicted on Saturday unless she surrendered the guinea pigs. Rescue volunteers arrived at the home on Thursday, knowing it was a tall task, and discovered that it wasn't 200 guinea pigs, but instead between 400 and 500. While at the home, the SCGPR said volunteers found the following: SCGPR, The Rescue Garden, Wee Companions and Vegas Friends of Guinea Pigs Rescue removed the 33 guinea pigs in the most need of medical attention. The SCGPR said L.A. Animal Rescue representatives showed little concern for the guinea pigs, saying they had all basic needs met at the location. "This is one of the most overwhelming and heartbreaking cases we've ever seen," said a representative from SCGPR. "The response from the Lieutenant who visited the property this morning in the face of such visible suffering is unacceptable." The volunteer organizations are now asking for the public to adopt or foster the guinea pigs in need. They're also asking for donations as the 33 rescued guinea pigs receive medical care. Those looking to help can visit the SCGPR website here.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Scientists just made guinea pigs listen to Adele for seven days… and the results are both surprising and worrying
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. If you're a music maker then you can't fail to have grasped the concept of compression and, more than likely, thanked your lucky stars that it was there to help. Whether it's evening out your iffy performance or making bad drums and thin bass sound insanely great, compression is a simple but magic trick of the volume level that can put any music in your face and number one in your affections. If it's too quiet a compressor makes it louder. Now everything is at the same level. But, just like amping up food with artificial flavourings or taking political opinion to extremes, it's possible to have too much of a 'good' thing. While the arguments both for and against compression are well known (remember the 'loudness war' that saw remastered classic albums coming back 'brickwalled' with all of their subtle dynamics disappeared?) it's now been medically proven that compression equals bad… While 'playing music loud is going to damage your ears' is common sense, surely the amount of compression employed on a track doesn't make a difference? Not so. Now, new research with guinea pigs has shown that compression may not be your best friend after all and that compressed music damages ears in ways that uncompressed, more dynamic music does not. The experiment's findings suggest that having silence between sounds – giving the brain a chance to process 'what just happened' and appreciate the surprising peaks to come – gives the listener's brain sufficient headroom to recover from their last surprise allowing them to listen and understand and enjoy music for longer. It's a known fact that listening for too long (and perhaps at two high a level) produces a fatigue that is the scourge of musicians and studio staff worldwide. In short, compressed audio is more tiring to listen to and – thanks to some new research – may just be officially bad for you too. And the guinea pigs in this new experiment?… Were actual guinea pigs… And what unpleasantries were they subjected to in the pursuit of science? Adele's 2015 single I Miss You. Obviously The guinea pigs were split into two groups. One group listened to the Adele favourite in unmolested form while the others were endlessly fed a compressed version, with both groups listening to the track at the same perceived volume level of 102 decibels. And it that sounds like a lot, it's because it is. It's actually just below Britain's Health and Safety Executive's recommended maximum average for live music. Needless to say, tests of the various guinea pig's cochlea's post Adele trauma revealed damage to their inner ear, leading to mild temporary impairment which would, in time, produce permanent damage. No surprises thus far. However the group listening to the compressed version had endured more lasting damage to the middle ear's stapedius muscle. This component of every ear (humans too) protects the inner ear from loud noises and, at just 1mm long, is actually the smallest skeletal muscle in the body. This, despite the music – uncompressed and a compressed version – being played at the exact same volume. In the tests, the hearing of those animals who had listened to the uncompressed Adele made a full recovery within a day, with their hearing and performance of the stapedius muscle returning to normal. The test was repeated for seven days with no discernible lasting effects. However, those who had encountered the compressed Adele did not get off so lightly, with their stapedius reflexes never fully recovering and exhibiting half of their strength at the end of the experiment a week later. Thus Paul Avan, an audiologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris who wrote up his results in the journal Hearing Research, has concluded that the constant stimulus of compressed music overwhelms the nerve cells in auditory processing, affecting their ability to bounce back and recover. While there's still much to unpack – how much compression is 'bad', can a full recovery be made through an extended rest period, and so on – the results are nonetheless conclusive and surprising, suggesting that not only volume level but the relentless dynamics of what we're actually listening may have serious later repercussions on our hearing. You heard it here first.
