The move made available un-redacted reports for nearly 10,000 zoos, circuses, breeders, research labs and shows that were publicly available on Jan. 30, 2017, before they were purged.
KARIN BRULLIARD: ‘The U.S. Agriculture Department restored to its website animal welfare inspection reports for dog breeding operations and other facilities on Tuesday, the deadline set by Congress for providing searchable access to documents the agency abruptly removed three years ago. The move made available unredacted reports for nearly 10,000 zoos, circuses, breeders, research labs and Tennessee walking horse shows that were publicly available on Jan. 30, 2017 — days before they were purged — as well as those generated since, the department said. The reports, based on unannounced inspections, can be used by the agency to build cases against facilities that violate animal welfare regulations, and animal protection groups had long used them to call attention to operations they said treated animals inhumanely.
The USDA said in 2017 that it removed the reports and other records over concerns about due process and privacy rights of animal business owners. It later reposted some, but in heavily redacted form. Others were available only through Freedom of Information Act requests, which could take months or years to be fulfilled. Over the past three years, animal welfare groups have filed several lawsuits aimed at forcing the agency to restore the records. They also lobbied Congress. In December, U.S. lawmakers passed a spending bill that ordered the USDA to bring back the searchable database and use it to publish various animal welfare records.
But the Humane Society and other animal welfare organizations emphasized that the USDA’s announcement Tuesday still left several kinds of records unpublished. The agency said it would take up to 60 days to post those documents, which include enforcement records, inventories of animals at individual facilities and “teachable moments.” The teachable moments note violations by facilities, such as insufficient drinking water or dirty cages, but do not count them as citations’. SOURCE…
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