What a remarkable Washington Post story, with remarkable pictures.
The first beagle out that day had brown eyes and a chunk missing from his left ear. His tail was a nub. It went from tan to white, then disappeared, maybe bitten off in a fight or caught in a cage door.
The 1-year-old had never been given a name — just an identification code, ‘CMG CKA,’ tattooed in blue-green on the flap of his left ear. Like the thousands of other beagles bred for research at Envigo, a sprawling complex tucked deep in rural Virginia, he’d spent his entire life in a cage surrounded by the relentless barking of other dogs.
Now, on a Thursday in late July, that was about to change.
Uno, as he was immediately dubbed by his rescuers, and 3,775 other beagles were being sprung from their misery in an unprecedented animal welfare seizure.
After years of alarm from animal rights advocates and state legislators, after U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors found maggot-infested kibble, 300 dead puppies and injured beagles being euthanized, after an undercover investigation by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and after a lawsuit filed against Envigo by the Justice Department, the Indianapolis-based company had reached a settlement with the federal government. It agreed to shut down the Virginia breeding operation — admitting no wrongdoing and receiving no punishment or fines — rather than make what the CEO of its parent company called “the required investments to improve the facility.”
In July, U.S. District Court Judge Norman K. Moon approved the surrender of Envigo’s beagles to the Humane Society of the United States, giving the nonprofit group just weeks to organize the biggest rescue in its 67-year history.
“There’s been nothing, ever, like this. Just the sheer volume of dogs, or really, any animal,” said Kitty Block, the Humane Society’s president and chief executive.
What followed was two months of beagle mania, as people across the country showered the Humane Society with $2.2 million in donations and clamored to adopt the dogs. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle took in a beagle. So did the governor of New Jersey and the chief meteorologist at a Virginia news station.
But the beagle emancipation was cloaked in secrecy. Almost no one was allowed to see the dogs leave Envigo.
Why all the secrecy is never made completely clear. Was it meant to benefit the beagles or protect the horribly company involved?
BTW, Envigo is still breeding lab animals, including beagles. The fact that the people who ran that breeding facility are not in jail shows how far we have to go on even the most basic animal rights issues
Anyway, the entire story is remarkable, except for this part:
The puppy pursuers outside the Humane Society far outnumbered voters at a neighboring polling place for the Wisconsin primary. One man — who arrived at the Humane Society with an injured crow — appeared bewildered by all the people, asking if they were there for one of the gubernatorial candidates.
I love animals as much as (or more than) the next person, but I love humans just as much. And I worry about the future we are leaving innocent children of countless current and upcoming generations.
That people can mobilize to this extent to save beagles (and yay! that they do) but not be bothered to vote, or care enough to reject the proto fascism of the GOP, is a huge problem in this society.
And I’ve got news for GOP-loving animal lovers: the lives of animals are not going to get any better with Republicans in control of your statehouse or the Congress.
