From 2005 GuineaFest: FOX TV News Clips
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Wellington Place Apartment Piggy Rescue - July 11-17th

Monday

We were contacted on 7-11-05 by Deborah, who’s Mother-in-law Josie, lives at Wellington Place Apartments; they had been out walking the day before and had seen a group of Guinea Pigs eating grass in the middle of the complex. The Guinea Pigs were observed to be living in a closet on the patio of one of the apartments, coming out at dawn and dusk to eat the grass. Josie, in talking to other residents, thought they had been there at least a week.

We asked Deborah to see if Josie could ask permission from the people of the apartment for us to gain access to their patio area during the day, if so we would go over there the following day

Tuesday

Deborah called to say that it was ok for us to enter the patio area of the apartment to rescue the piggies, in fact, the residents were happy for us to remove the Guinea Pigs. She also stated that 1 of the Guinea Pigs had been killed the night before by one of the complex’s residents

It was imperitive we took quick action to prevent further tragedies, so I contacted Sarita who agreed to meet me out there that afternoon. It was 3.00pm when we got there, probably almost 100°, we were dressed in work attire but had come prepared with nets, carriers and a cube playpen.

Deborah and Josie met us also and led us to where the piggies were, Sarita saw one under the patio but it quickly ran to the closet. We entered the patio by not so gracefully scaling the fence (even with the help of a step ladder), we placed the playpen around the doorway then opened the door, hoping to find a herd of piggies waiting to be rescued. Unfortunately only 2 babies, we scooped them up and put them safely in the carrier.

We had a look around the grassy area but didn’t see any signs of more piggies, the maintenance guy told us that another one had been killed, making a total of 2 fatalities. Then a group of children told us they had spotted one to the front of the building, so we started back to get the nets, at the same time a lady shouts from a second storey balcony that there was another one running under a patio. Sarita caught the little guy under the patio quite quickly, then we went onto the front of the building where the children had spotted the other one. This guy was a little more evasive, but he eventually ran into the net (and poked his head all the way through a hole) we got him safely out though, with no injuries and put him in the carrier with the rest.

We took another look around under the patios and behind the bushes but couldn’t find any more, everyone said they would look out for them, so we departed, very hot but happy we had rescued 4.

Wednesday

Deborah called to say she and Josie had caught 2 more, they had purchased a fine minnow net and managed to catch them with it. This time they had been on the opposite side of the complex and the maintenance guy had alerted them to their whereabouts. Deborah met Tammy with the piggies and picked up a cage and supplies in case she found more.

Thursday

Deborah e-mailed to say that she and Josie had been out walking when one ran down the alleyway in front of them, they caught him also and took him home. Unfortunately yet another piggy had been killed, this time with a large rock by an adult resident.

We started organizing to meet up again as a group so we could sweep the complex and hopefully find any others out there, we knew there were parents that had not been rescued, all the ones caught so far were babies 3 weeks to 8 weeks old, probably 3 different litters, so we were missing 3 mums and a dad at least. They thought 1 of the 3 killed was an adult and there was a black and white one that many people had seen that was unaccounted for.

Friday

None rescued today

Saturday

None rescued today

Sunday

7.00am we met at the complex, Sarita, Shirley, Deborah, Josie and myself, we scoured the complex over and over again, the place where the 2 on Thursday were caught had put out rat poison, we think she had also called Deborah’s phone threatening us to keep off her property.

Deborah and Josie had put up posters in case anyone found one, so they could call us, or if they had taken one in and decided to not keep it, rather than putting it back outside we wanted them to have an easy alternative.

We spent 2 hours searching for the remaining piggies, plenty of stories of how large the group had been, where they were living, what might have happened to them, but no one had seen any for a couple of days.

We were all pretty despondent when we got ready to leave, Tammy and Mike joined us for one last look around, and it’s not that we needed any more piggies at the rescue, but we hated to think that we had left one behind.

Deborah and Josie are going to keep looking and they have the word out, so we will hopefully be called if anyone finds any more.

It was a great effort by everyone involved, and thankfully Deborah and Josie were compassionate enough to want to help these guys. Thanks to everyone who helped throughout the week and those that offered to. Hopefully we won’t have to do anything like this again, but if we do we know we can pull together to accomplish it. Perhaps if we had been able to get out there sooner, we could have done more, but as everyone always reminds me, ‘we can’t save them all’ but you know what, we ‘can darn well try’.