HELP BRING AN END TO AN ORGANIZED PET THEFT ACTIVITY ACROSS THE U.S.!
PLEASE CONTACT MEMBERS OF CONGRESS AND ASK THEM TO CO-SPONSOR:
The Pet Safety and Protection Act, of 1997 HR 594
Introduced February 5, 1997 by Rep. Canady (R-FL), Rep. Brown (D-CA), and over a dozen bipartisan cosponsors, this legislation would prohibit USDA licensees from using a long standing procurement practice called "random source collection," to supply market demand for companion animals. These federally licensed dealers obtain former pets, and then deliver them as agriculture "commodities" demanded by the Nation's publicly funded research establishment. Organized pet theft has been ongoing for 30 years, since this "random source" practice became "legal" back in 1966! A companion bill to The Pet Safety and Protection Act, was introduced into the US Senate's during the last session as SB 2114, and will soon be reintroduced.
HR 594 is identical to the bill by the same name introduced last session, supported by American Humane Association, ASPCA, Animal Care and Welfare/SPCA, API, Council for Compassionate Governance, Doris Day Animal League, Fund for Animals, HSUS, and the Washington Humane Society, just to name a few organizations
Throughout the history of Congressional attempts to regulate the system of animal acquisition for research facilities, anti-pet theft provisions have consistently and effectively been sidetracked by important, yet unrelated discussions of animal care conditions. The issue at hand is illegal interstate commerce in stolen animals, funded by tax dollars.
In the last session of Congress, a bill similar (in fact, based on) the Pet Safety and Protection Act was introduced to the House of Reps. This bill, HR 3393, contained a loophole in which class B dealers could simply become contract pounds, and continue sales of animals into research facilities uninterrupted. This was most unacceptable, yet garnered some support from people unaware of its consequences.
We fully expect another bill to be introduced this session which may confuse the issue at hand. History is working against us here, showing that every serious attempt to stop those who sell stolen animals into research has been sidetracked by changes that are appealing to those of us who care about animals, yet allow the trade in stolen animals to continue uninterrupted. Hopefully, any such attempt will be revealed, and for the first time in over 30 years, pet owners' interests will be upheld by Congress.
When contacting your members of Congress, tell them that a vote for HR 594 is a vote for:
an end to oganized, systematic interstate trafficing stolen
animals
less burdensome regulatory activities for the USDA
savings of tax dollars in futile enforcement attempts
less animal suffering at the hands of class B dealers.
On Wednesday, September 25, 1996 Hawaii Senator Daniel Akaka
introduced SB 2114, the Pet Safety and Protection Act of 1996.
This was the companion bill to HR 3398 in the house.
The bill died, and will be introduced un der a new number in 1997
as a companion bill to HR 594. Both the Senate and the House
version would amend the Animal Welfare Act to disallow class B
dealers from selling dogs and cats to research facilities. Please
request your Senator to support the introduction of this Bill!
Congratulations to all involved -- It has been a real group effort with almost every organization coordinating efforts to get us this far. Present at the August 1 hearing was Norm Flint, a victim of Barbara Ruggiero's L.A. scam to fraudulently answer newspaper ads and sell the animals to southern california facilities. After Last Chance for Animals (LCA) exposed the scheme, Norm got one of his 2 dogs back, the other had already been killed at Cedar-Sinai Medical Center. Also present was an Ohio woman, who was brought by LCA to tell the story of how her award winning pure bred norweigen elf hound, Danny, was stolen and sold to a research facility, and returned because of a microchip in his neck. LCA has also learned that the University of Southern California (USC) and Cedar-Sinai as well as possibly other research facilities are now publically stating that they no longer purchase animals from class B dealers subsequent to the AGAIN having to return stolen animals-- these from a dealer in Oregon whose case LCA is closely following.
Presented to the ONE
HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
For Consideration of a Proposed Amendment to Pub. L. 89-544, the
Laboratory Animal Welfare Act of 1966
In Support of the THE PET SAFETY AND PROTECTION ACT of 1997 - HR
594
Submitted to the
Distinguished Members of the
UNITED STATES SENATE AND HOUSE COMMITTEES
on AGRICULTURE, COMMERCE AND THE JUDICIARY
From the National Pet Theft Awareness Day
Coalition
Last Chance for Animals
8033 Sunset Boulevard, Suite 35, Los Angeles, CA 90046 - (310)
271-6096
"I think the record will be clear that we are not here to attempt to curb research. Yet, we do not think we can allow the needs of research, great as they may be, to promote either the theft of a child's pet or the growth of unscrupulous animal dealers."
-- Chairman Warren G. Magnuson
U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce
Opening remarks in hearings prior to enactment of Pub. L. 89-544,
the
Laboratory Animal Welfare Act
March 25, 1966
After thirty years, the existing government regulations for procuring cats and dogs for research have fostered a nationwide network of Federally licensed dealers who steal or fraudulently obtain household pets to sell to laboratories for experimentation. According to the Federal Register, v.52, no. 61, "The net effect [of the current system] is to encourage animal theft for profit." Stolen pets have been retrieved from a wide variety of prestigious institutions, including Veterans Administration facilities, the Mayo Institute, the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, Harvard and Yale Medical Schools.
Organized pet theft in America became a public issue early in this century, and in 1966 Congress passed the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act, (now the Animal Welfare Act), which was intended to discourage it. However, just the opposite occurred. The new legislation merely granted licenses to the very people who had been stealing pets, which led to artificially inflated prices for lab animals and a corresponding increase in pet theft.
Subsequent amendments to the Act have proven ineffective in solving this problem. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is the agency of the USDA charged with the administration of the Animal Welfare Act. The USDA Office of Inspector General Audit Report No. 33600-1-Ch, dated January 5, 1995, states that "APHIS lacks the regulatory authority to adequately enforce the requirements of the Animal Welfare Act".
Therefore, in order to protect the property rights of the 150 million taxpaying American pet owners, reduce government inefficiency, eliminate the waste of taxpayer dollars and restore confidence in government regulatory agencies, Last Chance for Animals and almost five hundred groups nationwide are calling for the passage of HR 594, corrective legislation which will guarantee that pet owners will no longer be made victims by a government system designed to protect them.
In order to prevent the theft of companion animals, the USDA grants two types of licenses which allow individuals to commercially sell animals into research. Class A licensees are breeders, while class B licensees are dealers who obtain and resell "random source" animals. There are approximately 1,100 licensed class B dealers. The USDA claims that of these, approximately fifty run businesses which sell randomly obtained animals directly to research facilities for profit.
According to USDA regulations, class B dealers must obtain their animals from animal regulation facilities (pounds), other dealers, or private individuals who have bred and raised the animals themselves. Under existing statutes, class B dealers can then legally resell unlimited numbers of these animals to research facilities. Prices are usually based upon the demand and the availability of a particular breed. Dogs sell from $150 to $700 and cats from $50 to $200. Documentation exists which reveals dealers are literally making millions of dollars by selling their random source animals to research facilities.
Since many of these dogs and cats were "former" household pets, it is impossible to visually distinguish between animals which were obtained legally and pets which were stolen to supply market demand.
Class B dealers across the country employ petty thieves, called "bunchers", who gather animals by various means. Class B dealers then transport animals, via truck and air shipments, to research facilities hundreds and even thousands of miles away to avoid detection.
There are an estimated two million missing pets each year. Owners who suspect that their pets have been stolen discover conflicting legal interpretations which prevent local, State, and Federal authorities from seriously investigating the allegations of theft. Pet theft victims are left on their own to sort out the ambiguities in the law as they attempt to locate their missing property. The dealers systematically exploit these ambiguities to avoid prosecution, and continue their business uninterrupted.
Even though existing statutes allow the right to search for missing pets, both citizens and law enforcement officers are routinely refused entry to dealers' facilities. Class B dealers have been recorded going so far as to threaten violence towards those seeking to legally obtain entry to their facilities. USDAÊofficials themselves have been denied access to dealers' facilities for even routine inspections.
USDA internal reports reveal that the Agency's personnel accommodated facility operators who routinely refused inspectors access to their facilities. An APHIS inspector is, in fact, currently under investigation by the FBI for soliciting and receiving a bribe from a Missouri licensee.
In order to insure the legal acquisition of animals, Congress passed an amendment to the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) in 1990 which required class B dealers to document the identity of each person who supplied them with random source animals. A January 5, 1995 Office of Inspector General (OIG) Audit Report uncovered a majority of instances where "licensed dealers ... obtained animals from random sources which could not be verified... The sellers did not acknowledge any sales to the dealer, or could not be located." A 1993 USDA investigation revealed frequent examples of suppliers to class B dealers who could themselves not be located due to incorrect names and drivers license numbers, and people listed who had never actually supplied animals.
USDA Assistant Secretary Michael Dunn, testifying on August 1, 1996 before the U. S. House Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry, stated that "fifty-two percent" of the records designed to verify the legal acquisition of animals by class B dealers are incomplete, incorrect, or outright fraudulent. This is the strongest possible indication of widespread illegal activity with regards to the acquisition of random source animals, yet fraudulent recordkeeping is considered only a minor violation of the AWA.
Under the current system, dealers found to be deficient in recordkeeping are first cited, and then fined. The January 5, 1995 OIG Audit Report revealed that monetary penalties assessed by APHIS were not always aggressively collected and were in some cases arbitrarily reduced. The report stated that, "many facility operators consider the [fines] a normal cost of doing business rather than an incentive to comply with the Act."
The same Audit Report states that "APHIS had renewed licenses or registrations to facilities which were in direct violation of the Act." By December 1996, only three dealers have ever had their licenses permanently revoked since the passage of this anti-theft legislation over thirty years ago.
In the August 1st Congressional hearing, Assistant Secretary Dunn stated that, "Every time we develop a new way to look at things, they [dealers] develop a new way to hide them." In the rare instance where a class B dealer's license is suspended or revoked, a disturbing pattern has emerged whereby a spouse, close relative, or friend easily obtains a new license and the business of trafficking in random source animals continues uninterrupted.
APHIS currently employs only approximately 70 inspectors who are responsible for overseeing 13,000 regulated sites, which include all class A and B licensees, class C licensees (exhibitors), intermediate handlers, and research facilities. Even with the greatest of efficiency, the sheer volume of work renders adequate oversight of licensees impossible. It is clear, however, that APHIS is far from diligent and in fact has severe problems filling its role as an enforcement agency under existing regulations.
An APHIS review of its own Central Sector office cites instances in which shortcomings exist in the licensees operations, but "... the inspectors are not being advised to correct these shortcomings." The report also states, "Primary inspectors indicated they were told what individual facilities to inspect and when to inspect them... In some cases they would drive past facilities which would benefit from a re-inspection but have been instructed not to stop."
A senior APHIS inspector has come forward corroborating long-standing claims of USDA inefficiency and improper leniency in the regulation of dealers. By a continual denial of the reality of systematic interstate larceny, even top USDA officials contribute to the problem by exhibiting a "damage control" mentality that hinders real enforcement of violators of the AWA.
Research facilities, who acknowledge being victimized by the system, continue to do business with dealers, even as those dealers are facing charges for serious violations of the AWA. The majority of research facilities are partially or fully funded by taxpayer dollars which are then used to purchase the taxpayers own stolen pet.
Over the thirty year history of the Federal regulations, many members of Congress have identified the problem and attempted to solve it. The Pet Safety and Protection Act of 1996 was introduced during the 104th session of Congress, and has now been reintroduced as HR 594. This bill prohibits class B dealers from selling dogs and cats into research. Research facilities could still legally obtain dogs and cats from class A dealers (breeders), from local municipal pounds where permitted, and from individuals who donate animals they have raised themselves. If this bill were enacted, the USDA estimates an increase in cost to the research community of only 12 million dollars per year, or approximately one tenth of one percent of the total research budget.
As long as random source animal dealers can sell dogs and cats for cash, the financial incentive will exist for the dealers to obtain and sell stolen pets. Therefore, HR 594 is necessary to finally close the loophole which has allowed dealers to effectively avoid the intent of Congress in protecting citizens against the theft of their companion animals.