The lack of punitive action, given the gravity and number of the violations, has shocked and mystified animal welfare advocates. The disregard for the law and the welfare of the beagles has resulted in their needless suffering and death.
RACHEL FOBAR: It took media attention to ‘chilling’ welfare violations and bipartisan calls for action before authorities intervened. On May 21, a U.S. district court judge ordered Envigo’s Cumberland facility to “immediately cease breeding, selling, or otherwise dealing in beagles” until it separates dogs that don’t get along, ensures every puppy has access to clean water, and submits an inventory of every dog to the government, among other requirements…
Envigo breeds beagles as well as primates, rabbits, and rodents for use in toxicology research and other medical experiments… More than 5,000 dogs were crowded in small, barren cages lined with feces and mold. A three-week-old puppy was stuck in a waste pan under his cage, dried feces matting his fur. Fights between kennel mates had left some dogs dead, including one by “evisceration”…
In four visits to the Cumberland operation since July 2021 — most recently in March 2022 — USDA inspectors documented more than 70 welfare violations. They found that 13 beagle mothers who were nursing litters of six-week-old puppies, 78 in all, had gone without food for 42 hours. According to the inspectors’ report, Envigo deprived the mothers to reduce their milk production as part of its “weaning of puppies” procedure…
These violations and dozens more were documented in recent United States Department of Agriculture public inspection reports. Yet for months, the USDA, which is responsible for enforcing the Animal Welfare Act, neither confiscated any dogs nor suspended or revoked the license of the animal-breeding facility in Cumberland, Virginia. The facility is owned by Envigo, a privately held company with 20 locations across North America and Europe that provides animals for pharmaceutical and biomedical research.
In early May, National Geographic approached the USDA for comment about the facility’s history of violations and ongoing welfare problems. On May 18, authorities from the USDA and the Department of Justice confiscated 145 dogs in need of immediate medical care from Envigo’s facility in Cumberland, Virginia, according to a complaint filed the next day by the DOJ in federal court against Envigo. The Humane Society of the United States assisted in the seizures.
“Envigo’s disregard for the law and the welfare of the beagles in its care has resulted in the animals’ needless suffering and, in some cases, death,” according to the DOJ complaint… The lack of punitive action before May 18, given the gravity and number of the violations, has shocked and mystified animal welfare advocates. “It is baffling” that the USDA repeatedly cited Envigo without rendering “immediate aid to those animals,” said Daphna Nachminovitch, senior vice president of cruelty investigations for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which carried out a separate undercover investigation at Envigo last year…
USDA records also show that Huntingdon Life Sciences, which later merged with Harlan Labs to form Envigo, has had violations going back to the late 1990s. Citations from a 1997 report on Huntingdon showed “severe” suffering at a New Jersey facility—including a dog with an untreated broken leg, a drugged dog that was recommended for euthanasia but was not put down, and primates crying out and vomiting, unattended by a veterinarian. Envigo’s record is an “unmitigated, unprecedented disaster,” says Eric Kleiman, a researcher at the Animal Welfare Institute, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C…
National Geographic has documented a pattern of USDA failure to take action over animal welfare violations during the past several years, marked by a 90 percent drop in enforcement actions against licensed animal facilities between 2015 and 2020. There were two high-profile license revocations late last year… more than 300 puppies died at Envigo’s Cumberland branch between January 1 and July 20, 2021, and “the facility has not taken additional steps to determine the causes of death,” according to the USDA report. Yet for months, the department failed to take any action…
A recent investigation of another facility accredited by AAALAC indicates that Envigo’s welfare problems are not isolated. Inotiv—a rapidly expanding multinational pharmaceutical development company that breeds, sells, and conducts toxicology and other experiments on animals—reported $89.6 million in revenue last year, when it acquired Envigo. Inotiv owns about 62,000 animals, including monkeys, rabbits, and cats, as well as the thousands of beagles.
In a seven-month undercover investigation of an Inotiv laboratory in Mount Vernon, Indiana, released on April 21, the Humane Society of the United States found that dogs, primates, pigs, mice, and rats faced “prolonged, unalleviated pain” during toxicology tests before they died. Toxicology tests assess an animal’s tolerance to drugs. Doses administered by injection or feeding tube are increased until the animal experiences adverse effects…
The multiple severe violations documented at Envigo’s facility and the alleged failure to follow euthanasia procedures at Inotiv’s should be a wakeup call for the USDA to ramp up its oversight and enforcement of animal breeding and research companies, Kleiman says. “Research won’t police itself.” Kleiman says the USDA should send an unequivocal message that “no matter how large, how powerful, how wealthy” these companies are, animal suffering won’t be tolerated. “This is a nasty business,” Block says. “There’s cruelty everywhere, from the beginning of it to the end”. SOURCE…
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