About 4,000 beagles are looking for homes after animal rescue organizations began removing them from a Virginia facility that bred them for sale to drug testing labs.
“It’s going to take 60 days to get all of these animals out, and to work with our shelter and rescue partners across the country, to work with them to bring these dogs into a forever loving home,” said Kitty Block, President and Chief Executive Officer. of the Humane Society of the United States.
Shelters from South Elgin, Illinois, to Pittsburgh have started receiving the dogs, who will undergo medical exams, vaccinations and other treatments before becoming available for adoption.
In May, the US Department of Justice sued Envigo RMS LLC alleging animal welfare law violations at the Cumberland, Virginia facility. In June, parent company Inotiv Inc announced that it would close the facility. In July, Envigo settled with the government, without paying any fines.
Inotiv did not respond to a request for comment.
Government inspectors discovered that beagles were being killed there instead of receiving care for easily treatable conditions; nursing mother beagles were denied food; the food they received contained maggots, mold and feces; and over an eight-week period, 25 beagle puppies died from exposure to cold, the Humane Society said in a statement. Some were injured when attacked by other dogs in crowded conditions, he added.
The beagle rescue effort began much earlier, according to Bill Stanley, a Republican senator from Virginia. “I tried to close them in 2019, but without success. But over the years, we have never stopped fighting.”