The USDA shifted its emphasis toward accommodating business interests during the Obama administration. Animal welfare advocates say it has taken a toll on the well-being of the animals in regulated zoos and attractions.
RACHEL FOBAR: During a 2017 inspection of Monterey Zoo, formerly known as Wild Things Animal Rentals, Inc., in Salinas, California, federal officials found a squirrel monkey, kept alone in a cage, with a chain dangling from its waist. An elderly kangaroo was “exhibiting tremors and vision loss,” a federal inspector wrote in an internal memo. A rodent died after several days of declining health, without receiving veterinary care, the memo said.
Two inspectors from the United States Department of Agriculture, the agency responsible for enforcing the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), detailed these problems in an internal memo after a routine check of the zoo on September 25, 2017. But the memo included a surprising twist: “Photos and videos from the day of inspection will be discarded.” The USDA’s one-page official inspection record made no mention of possible infractions and judged Monterey Zoo to be fully compliant with the Animal Welfare Act. The inspectors had noted even more possible violations that were absent from their final report…
The internal USDA memo, obtained by the animal rights group PETA under a Freedom of Information Act request and shared exclusively with National Geographic, highlights one example in a pattern of federal officials’ failure to act on potential welfare violations. Several former USDA inspectors and senior staff interviewed by National Geographic say overlooked welfare concerns such as those at Monterey Zoo have become more common in the past six years, because of what they assert became a practice of prioritizing business interests over animal welfare. Between 2015 and 2020, U.S. enforcement actions brought against licensed animal facilities fell by 90 percent, according to a PETA assessment…
For animal advocacy groups like PETA, the contrast between the clean inspection report and the internal memo raising concerns provides new details about an issue they’ve been raising for years. “We’ve known that the USDA has miserably failed to enforce the AWA,” says Rachel Mathews, PETA Foundation’s director of captive animal law enforcement. “But this, for the first time, shows that the USDA’s misconduct really goes much deeper than previously we had known”…
In January 2016, under President Barack Obama, the USDA appointed Bernadette Juarez as the deputy administrator of Animal Care—the first person in that role to have a background in law rather than veterinary care. William Stokes, an assistant director of animal welfare operations at the USDA from 2014 to 2018 says he believes that Juarez weakened welfare guidelines, causing animals to “suffer immensely.” Previously, for example, the USDA required that animals be euthanized in accordance with the American Veterinary Medical Association’s guidelines, but under Juarez, this rule was eliminated.
According to Stokes, USDA inspectors saw breeders euthanize dogs by shooting them in the head—a method not recommended by the veterinary medical association for routine euthanasia, though it is not prohibited under the Animal Welfare Act. If the shooter is untrained and a bullet misses the target area, animals can endure a slow, semi-conscious death. The association’s guidelines recommend that a veterinarian administer barbiturates instead. Pressure for cost-cutting by facilities may have been behind the change. “It costs 50 cents for a bullet,” Stokes says. “If you take the animal in to the veterinarian to be humanely euthanized, it may cost you $50″…
In another case, the USDA inspected two facilities of Iowa dog breeder Daniel Gingerich an unprecedented eight times in July 2021, and inspectors documented more than 70 pages of Animal Welfare Act violations, but never seized any dogs… According to the reports, dogs were panting and gasping in the intense summer heat, several had empty or nearly empty water bowls, their coats were heavily matted, and many had skin conditions or oozing lesions. At least three dogs were found dead in two July inspections. “How that doesn’t trigger an immediate confiscation is beyond me,” Eric Kleiman, a researcher at the Animal Welfare Institute, says. “This is criminal cruelty”…
In 2018, the USDA removed from its website the animal care policy manual, which had detailed information such as animal auction regulations, exercise requirements for animals in traveling exhibits, and proper diets, leaving facilities with little or no USDA guidance on these matters, Stokes says. None of the guidelines or policy documents removed from the USDA website have been restored yet. Bell says the agency is working on updated confiscation guidance, and in the meantime, some policies listed in the manual have been published in other Animal Care guides online…
Veterinarian Katie Steneroden, who worked as a USDA inspector between 2017 and 2018, says it was rare for inspectors to issue Animal Welfare Act citations. When she was shadowing other inspectors during her training and saw welfare problems, she says, “I’d be like, well OK, this is surely going to be a citation.” But the inspector would say to the facility manager, “‘Oh, will you just do something about that next time?’”
A former employee, who worked for several years in the USDA’s Animal Care unit and asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, calls 2017—when potential infractions at Monterey Zoo went unreported—“the height of the reign of terror.” Inspectors “would have legitimate concerns and be afraid to cite them,” the former employee says, adding that in some cases, inspectors were told not to list certain infractions or to downgrade the severity of a citation. Those who did speak out were reprimanded…
USDA spokesperson Andre Bell… claimed in an email that the USDA “has never wavered in its mission to ensure the humane treatment of animals covered by the Animal Welfare Act… Critics disagree, saying the USDA shifted its emphasis toward accommodating business interests during the Obama administration. Animal welfare advocates say it has taken a toll on the well-being of the animals in regulated zoos and attractions that don’t meet high standards… The findings demonstrate systemic failure at the agency, and the lack of a complaint response process that affects animals at all USDA-regulated facilities, says Delcianna Winders, Animal Law Program director at Vermont Law School. SOURCE…
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