Audit Report Blasts U.S. Animal Welfare Act Enforcement

December 2005

In September 2005, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published its audit report on enforcement of the U.S. Animal Welfare Act (AWA). The highly critical report addresses the inspection and enforcement activities of the Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service (APHIS), which is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

APHIS’ Animal Care unit (AC) monitors compliance with the Animal Welfare Act of l966 and its amendments. AC conducts inspections of animal-holding facilities; investigates complaints about facilities; coordinates with the Investigative and Enforcement Services (IES); and oversees the effectiveness of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs).

The main activities covered by the audit were the work of the AC. A link to OIG’s full audit report can be found on IPPL’s website www.ippl.org.

The Animal Welfare Act and its regulations set minimum standards of care for many animal species used in research, displayed in public, or bred or shipped commercially. All primate species are covered by the Animal Welfare Act.

Disparity between the Eastern and Western regions

Animal care activities are based in Riverdale, Maryland. There are two regional offices. The Eastern Region is headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the Western Region in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Effective July 2005, APHIS had 9,532 active registrants. There are eight categories of licensees and registrants: Class A (animal breeders), Class B (animal dealers), Class C (licensed animal exhibitors), Class E (registered animal exhibitors), Class F (federal animal research facilities), Class R (animal research facilities other than federal), Class H (transportation handlers of animals), and Class T (transportation carriers of animals).

The OIG report noted that the Eastern Region was failing to take action against suspected violators of the AWA and that, during the year 2004, it only referred 82 cases to IES for action, in contrast to over 200 cases in 2002 and 2003.

One case in which no action was taken involved a licensee whose primate had bitten a four-year-old boy on his head and face. The wounds required 100 stitches to close. Despite the licensee having a history of AWA violations and the recommendation of the veterinary inspector that action be taken, the Eastern Region did not refer the potential case to the IES.

In another case, no action was taken when an unlicensed exhibitor’s monkey bit two children on separate occasions.

The OIG found that there were twice as many "repeat violations" in the Eastern Region than in the West.

Discounted fines

Unfortunately, animal welfare cases are not considered criminal cases. They are handled by "administrative court judges" outside the criminal court system. Even the most appalling offenders whose callousness or negligence causes pain, suffering, and death to animals cannot be sentenced to prison terms, a situation IPPL believes should be remedied.

Under current APHIS policy, Animal Care offers a 75 percent discount on fines, with still further reductions sometimes given. The resulting fines are so low that they do not deter violators.

One example of a discounted fine was the case of a zoo not identified in the report (in fact it was the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas). The OIG notes of this case,

For example, in fiscal year 2002, a zoo in Texas was offered a discounted stipulation totaling $5,600 (the original fine was $22,500) for violations that led to the death of a rhinoceros and a separate incident that resulted in the death of five gorillas from chlorine gas.

Ineffective self-monitoring of research facilities

Each research facility has an IACUC, which must include a senior research staff member, a veterinarian, and a member of the public, that is charged with monitoring the animals’ well being. The report did not address how the public member is selected and it is often hard to find out who they are. Although the IACUCs are supposed to look for alternative methods to animal experimentation and to review animal care and painful procedures, they are not as effective as they should be.

Other problems

According to the OIG report, not all facilities are inspected annually:
Given the limited number of inspectors and the large number of facilities, AC created a risk-based inspection system (RBIS) in February 1998 to better focus AC’s inspection strategy. Under this system, not all facilities are inspected annually. Some facilities meeting the criteria for low frequency intervals are subject to inspection once every 2 years, while others determined to require high frequency inspections are inspected at least 3 times annually.

OIG was appalled that incoming funds, such as checks to pay fines and fees, were not properly handled and that deposits were often delayed for months. IES did not log collections on receipt, nor did it reconcile its collections. Only one person collected and recorded the collections and mailed the deposits. Such laxity can lead to errors and even fraud.

Recommendations

OIG made a variety of recommendations, including the following:

• The 75 percent discounted fines should be eliminated for repeat or serious violations.
• Larger fines should be levied against research facilities (some of which are associated with facilities owning billions of dollars of assets), which may consider trifling fines a joke and just "part of the cost of doing business."
• Fines should be multiplied by the number of animals adversely affected by the violation(s).