How To Find Usda Past Animal Welfare Act Violations

54 Years Later, the Beast Welfare Act Fails to Protect Animals

Today marks 54 years of the Brute Welfare Act, the federal law regulating the treatment of animals bred for commercial auction, used in research, transported commercially or exhibited to the public.
The U.Southward. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the federal agency responsible for enforcing this law, is failing to properly regulate puppy mills—allowing inhumane, cruel conditions to persist.
You lot tin can aid hold the USDA accountable past signing our petition urging the agency to truly protect the animals under its oversight.

We have been fighting against puppy mill cruelty for decades. Unfortunately, the federal law charged with protecting dogs in puppy mills—the Animal Welfare Act (AWA)—isn't potent enough to practise the chore it'southward meant to do. To make matters worse, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)—the federal bureau charged with enforcing this law—has all just dismissed its responsibleness to the animals nether its oversight.

The AWA was signed into law on August 24, 1966. Information technology was the first federal law to regulate the treatment of animals in laboratories, zoos and the pet trade (including commercial breeding). Despite meaning changes in our cultural and academic understanding of what animals need and deserve, only modest changes have been fabricated to the AWA over the by 54 years.

The AWA currently outlines notoriously weak standards of treat dogs in commercial breeding facilities (a.k.a. puppy mills). Nether electric current regulations, USDA-licensed puppy breeders tin legally keep dogs in small wire-floored cages—stacked on top of ane another—for their unabridged lives. Female person dogs can exist forced to breed during every heat wheel, with no opportunities for their bodies to recover.

The USDA oversees the licensing and inspection of puppy mills to ensure they comply with the AWA's extremely low standards. When breeders violate these standards, the USDA is responsible for initiating enforcement deportment confronting the licensee. Withal, the USDA commonly chooses to take no activeness at all.

Insufficient laws, coupled with the USDA'south neglectful enforcing of its blank-bones welfare regulations, has proven to exist a recipe for massive animal suffering. The ASPCA will keep to advocate for federal-level changes and piece of work through the courts to hold the USDA and those who violate existing laws answerable. Nosotros will also continue to work with our partners at the land and local levels to preclude the savage practices tolerated by the USDA from affecting their communities.

The AWA is over a one-half-century old and has not kept step with our changing times, and the USDA is failing vulnerable animals. You can speak up by signing our petition urging the USDA to do correct past animals across the state.