On April 18, hundreds ofactivistsdescendedupon Ridglan Farms in Wisconsin. Ridglan has long been notorious among animal rights groups for the horrific conditions in which it keeps thousands of beagles, which Ridglan breeds into the world to sell to corporations and research facilities engaged in gruesome and often fatal government-funded experiments. These activists have been working to shut down Ridglan and rescue these dogs for almost a full decade. (Aninvestigative articleI wrote back in 2018, titled “Bred to Suffer,” documents these industrialized horrors and was largely enabled by their heroic work.)
Despite how dark and grim all of this is, their effort had not just a happy ending but also a rather inspirational one. Dramatic footage of these activists being violently attacked by police as well as private security hired by Ridglan went viral, and brought widespread attention to this systemetized abuses of dogs by Ridglan. That, in turn, engendered one of the most trans-ideological and bipartisan coalitions – composed of political officials, media figures, and ordinary citizens from every political camp – uniting to demand that Ridglan be shut down and the beagles released. Iwrote in detailabout this remarkable public reaction last week.
The public pressure and spotlight brought to bear by these activists finally became too much for Ridglan to sustain. They were forced to release the beagles to various dog rescue groups as part of a “sale,” and the internet is now replete withviral videosof Ridglan dogs finding loving homes. Ridglan has agreed torelinquishits operational license on July 1.
There are still roughly 500 beagles left at Ridglan, andlegal proceedingsare underway to prevent the corporation from killing them before its July 1 closure. And many other facilities continue to engage in similar behavior. But as a result of this Ridglan rescue mission, there is now far more awareness of, and public anger about, this dog experimentation industry and the government funds that enable these hideous but gratuitous experiments.
The activists who produced this stunning victory are not the kind who just show up to a protest one day and stay for a few hours, mulling around with some banal sign. These are among the most dedicated, courageous, and sophisticated devotees to a noble cause one could ever meet. Even though it was Ridglan which systematically violated federal and state law prohibiting animal abuse, it has been these activists who have been repeatedly prosecuted for attempting to shine a light on and to put an end to Ridglan’s crimes of animal abuse. Indeed, several of theseleading activistsare beingprosecutedfor multiple felony charges for the April 18 rescue.
My long-time colleague, the documentary filmmaker Leighton Woodhouse, was with one group of these activists as they planned and trained for their rescue operation, and then finally arrived at Ridglan to carry it out. He filmed it all and has produced an exclusive short film that offers an inside look at this very risky yet ultimately wildly successful mission.
Leighton Woodhouse’s work can be foundat his Substack page, “Social Studies,” which I highly recommend.
Source: Glenn Greenwald
