USA TODAY International Edition
Animal abuse records vanish from USDA site
Until early this month, you could go to a federal website to find out how animals are being treated at thousands of commercial dog breeders, zoos and research facilities. The site served as a protector of animals — from puppies to primates — by opening a window on mistreatment of defenseless creatures.
But three weeks into the Trump administration, the U. S. Department of Agriculture slammed shut access to this public information, purging the website and sweeping years of inspection reports and other data back under cover.
The website has been an irreplaceable resource for journalists and animal welfare advocates seeking to shine light on all manner of cruelty at government- regulated businesses across the country. These included:
A breeding and research lab in Washington state where 38 primates died, according to a USDA complaint, as a result of everything from botched surgeries and dehydration to strangulation when entangled in a cable.
Puppy mills where underweight and injured dogs live in unsanitary conditions, or where dogs fail to get proper veterinary treatment, or where small dogs are left out in freezing weather.
Animal welfare advocates had fought for years to get this information online, at times resorting to lawsuits against the USDA to force public information to be, well, public. Since 2009, more and more data, covering about 10,000 federal licensees now, became available to animal lovers, regulators and law enforcement.
Diligent consumers could check commercial dog breeders to determine if puppies sold at pet stores came from breeders with clean records. Advocates, including the Humane Society of the U. S. and the Animal Welfare Institute, have used the data to investigate abuse at puppy mills, research facilities and zoos.
Seven states and many cities have based laws, aimed at pre- venting importation and sale of abused dogs from puppy mills, on the inspection information available only on the website. Enforcement has been upended.
Why did the department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service purge the records? The reasons are murky. A new Agriculture secretary is not in place, and an agency spokesman declined to answer questions.
In a statement, the agency said it is involved in a lawsuit over information posted on the site and “in an abundance of caution” has taken “measures to protect individual privacy.” People can still try to get the data, the agency said, through Freedom of Information Act requests.
Purging the site is a ridiculous overreaction to litigation, and the FOIA process is typically tedious and time- consuming.
The Humane Society, which reached a court settlement in 2009 with USDA to make annual reports on research facilities public, is seeking to intervene in the lawsuit. On Monday, other animal welfare groups and individuals sued in federal court to reinstate the site.
The public deserves access to data gathered at government expense under the Animal Welfare and Horse Protection laws. Most of all, innocent creatures deserve public oversight to assure that they are treated humanely.