So sizeable is New York’s rat population that the city has launched a “Rat Academy” to educate people on how to make their homes and places of work less inviting to hungry vermin. Now there’s another type of rapidly breeding rodent giving city officials nightmares.
New York’s animal shelters are so overrun with unwanted pet guinea pigs that the council is considering a ban on the sale of the animals. Six hundred guinea pigs have been surrendered to city-funded shelters so far this year, compared with the 263 who were handed over for rehoming in the first eight months of 2020. Last week, nine guinea pigs were found abandoned in Hudson River Park on the west side of Manhattan.
“It’s extremely serious,” says Katy Hansen, a spokeswoman for Animal Care Centres of NYC, a non-profit organisation with three full-service shelters around the city. “I know it seems like, ‘They’re really small. What’s the big deal?’, but we have to keep housing them. We’ve had to buy extra housing for them at one of our shelters and it cost $20,000. That’s money we don’t have.”
A bill that would make it illegal for the city’s pet stores to sell guinea pigs was introduced this year. It was signed by 34 council members out of 51, the required threshold for a super-majority. A public hearing on the legislation is expected this autumn. After that, the bill will have to pass another council vote and be signed off by the mayor to become law.
Sales of guinea pigs rose during the pandemic when New Yorkers rushed to buy pets to distract them from the monotony of lockdown. Small and with an outgoing disposition — guinea pigs are known to twist and jump when happy, a behaviour known as “popcorning” — the rodents were popular with people who didn’t want the responsibility of a dog or cat, but craved more interaction than they could get from a hamster or gerbil. “Guinea pigs have incredible personalities,” says Hansen. “If you break open a head of lettuce and you peel off the leaves, it sounds like they’re all giggling because they’re so excited to get the lettuce.”
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In America, national pet retail chains such as Petco and PetSmart sell guinea pigs for less than $50. However, according to Hansen, most store-bought guinea pigs come “unaltered” — not spayed or neutered. Given that it’s difficult to determine the sex of a guinea pig without an ultrasound, pairs of misgendered guinea pigs have been sold together as companions, only for them to end up as more than just friends.
“I’ve had three litters born in two weeks,” says Liz Richter, a Long Island veterinary nurse who recently opened a guinea pig rescue on the second floor of her house. She is caring for 30 guinea pigs and hopes to find them all loving homes. “I’m getting at least four to five requests a day for people to surrender their guinea pigs to me, but I can’t take more than I have.”
She attributes the surge in unwanted guinea pigs to their lifespan. While hamsters live for two to three years, guinea pigs can live until the age of eight. “I have people saying, ‘My daughter has a two-year-old guinea pig and she’s going off to college. We didn’t realise it would live this long. Can you take it?’”
Richter supports the proposed bill but worries that it could push some guinea pig breeders underground. “I think pet stores need to stop selling them for at least a year and see how that goes,” she said. “Then maybe we have [a system where] reputable breeders breed guinea pigs for approved families.”
In addition to the city’s shelters, the classifieds website Craigslist has emerged as a forum for disillusioned owners to offload unwanted pets. Not all transactions end well. “There’s an ad from someone in Queens who was taking all the free guinea pigs, freezing them and then selling them as snake food for six dollars a piece,” says Richter.
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“The most important thing when one of my guinea pigs is adopted is that I keep an open line of communication so that, Heaven forbid the person can’t keep them, I will take the guinea pig back. No questions asked.”