The U.S. Department of Agriculture must now disclose all welfare violations in every animal shelter inspection report filed.
Previously, inspectors had the legal right to omit certain minor violations from publicly available records, calling them “learning opportunities.”
The omissions have been allowed for six years, but will no longer continue. Issues previously overlooked included record keeping and tidiness issues.
Now all crimes committed by animal centers, including dog farms and zoos, will be fully reported.
Violators who fail to fulfill their duty of care towards animals can be fined and/or charged for animal abuse in accordance with the Animal Welfare Act.
Animal activists welcome the update
Animal welfare advocates have criticized the previous policy since it came into effect. Citing a perceptible lack of transparency, the new update was hailed as a victory for captive animals.
“It was impossible to get an accurate report of a licensed facility’s operations and their failures,” Matt Rossell, campaign manager with the Animal Legal Defense Fund, said in a statement.
He continued, “Teaching moments hindered the proper and lawful care of animals.”
The deputy administrator of the USDA’s Animal Care Program, Betty Goldentyer, announced that all violations will be fully reported effective immediately. They will also be available for public scrutiny on the USDA website.
“The humane treatment of animals is always [our] top priority, and we are using all available options to achieve this goal,” Goldentyer said in a statement.
‘Teachable moments’
The USDA implemented its learning opportunities policy in 2016. It would be an attempt to get inspectors and facilities to work closely together in the interest of animal welfare.
“We see learning moments as an educational approach,” the first statement read.
Teachable moments became a cause for concern as reports were heavily redacted. As a result, it often took years to access missing information.
An interim solution was to post the moments separately online, but not in facility reports. This was widely criticized as misleading because sites technically had a clean inspection record. This, while it is still under investigation for minor violations.
Congress used its 2022 credit bill to end the policy on August 1.
Concerns that incite policy change
Within two years of the introduction of the learning opportunities policy, the number of social assistance benefits fell by 60 percent. PETA also claims that between 2015 and 2020, enforcement activity against licensed animal sites dropped by 90 percent.
It has been found that the USDA has allowed a number of serious welfare violations to go unreported at animal shelters. These include the transport of bear cubs in a covered plastic container, images of which were posted to Instagram on March 18.
A month after the incident, USDA inspectors gave a lesson for improper ventilation, despite it being a subpoena.
“That’s just a recent example of a laundry list of examples of the USDA not following its own protocols,” said Brittany Peet, the PETA Foundation’s deputy general counsel for the enforcement of the captive animal law. National Geographic.
Animal facilities require discretion
Despite claiming to advocate for transparency in animal care, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums calls for “discretion” in its reporting.
Dan Ashe, the nonprofit’s president and CEO, said he hopes the new policy won’t send the wrong message. He calls on inspectors to use their own judgment as to whether certain violations actually need citations.
“At some level, USDA inspectors need to be trusted to make a decision, as you would hope a local police officer would,” Ashe said in a statement.
“If I have a taillight, or if I roll through a stop sign, or something like that, we all hope law enforcement officers will use that opportunity as a way to say, okay, don’t do it again. ‘”
PETA applauds the unedited reporting policy, but deplores the necessary intervention by Congress. The organization views the USDA as not being proactive about its own actions.
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