Humane Society of the United States Rescues 4,000 Envigo Beagles; Dogfighter Busted with 30 Beagles Weeks Later. Coincidence?
The Humane Society of the United States is raising funds for 275 pitbulls that were rescued from South Carolina dogfighters September 25, 2022, but HSUS has a history of mismanaging funds and potential donors deserve to know what happened to the 4,000 beagles it rescued from Envigo, a facility that bred dogs for research labs, raised money for and dispersed across the country in August. Why? Because contrary to HSUS President and CEO Kitty Block's blog post stating 275 dogs were rescued during that South Carolina dogfighting bust, 305 dogs were rescued. The other 30 were beagles. There's no telling how many beagles were killed before police and feds broke up a planned dogfight and raided nearly two dozen properties.
Why the Department of Justice Needs to Investigate the Humane Society of the United States' Envigo Beagle Rescue
The Department of Justice shut down the Envigo breeding facility for "failing to provide humane care and treatment to the thousands of beagles at the company’s Cumberland [Virginia] facility," according to a July 18, 2022, DOJ press release. By its own admission, the Humane Society of the United States was "the sole party responsible for coordinating the removal of approximately 4,000 beagles" and was "chosen to ... coordinate the placement of [the 4,000 beagles] with [its] shelter partners to ultimately find them loving homes." HSUS announced those partners July 29, 2022.
Not one Ohio shelter was on that list, yet 100 beagles were sent to Columbus Humane, which ignored my warning that Columbus dogfighters were using Craigslist to obtain cats and kittens in early 2021. It kept 10 beagles that it adopted out on a first-come-first-served basis and sent the rest to shelters throughout Ohio, where dogfighters have been killing cats, kittens, dogs and rabbits.
With the dogfighting bust in South Carolina, the number of pitbulls taken from dogfighters this year has skyrocketed to 575:
Those are dogfighters who were caught. Edward Bronaugh, Joshua Mungo, Toriano Cave and Mekiel Woolfork et al. were obviously fighting dogs with somebody, and there's no telling how many animals they've killed to "train" their pitbulls to fight and kill their opponents.
As stated in my petition seeking a lengthy mandatory minimum sentence for dogfighters, who often get a slap on the wrist, dogfighting has increased across the country as more and more people are "rehoming" pets online because shelters are full. With 4,000 microchipped beagles distributed to states renowned for dogfighting and 30 beagles having been found on dogfighter Kelvin Foster's property weeks later, now would be a great time for the Humane Society of the United States, which left any mention of those 30 beagles out of its blog post, and its partner organizations to follow up on the Envigo beagles, whose ears were tattooed for identification purposes, to ferret out other dogfighters or people obtaining bait animals for them and to improve their adoption process. This petition will be sent to criminal.division@usdoj.gov to ensure they do.
Sign/share: https://chng.it/277TsL5sXQ