Michigan Representative Mike Bishop is questioning the USDA's practice of testing and killing hundreds of kittens at a lab in Maryland.
In a letter to USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue sent Monday, Bishop says "Toxoplasmosis in cats" is a research project being conducted at the USDA's Animal Parasitic Diseases Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland. The experiment involves "breeding hundreds of kittens, feeding them Toxoplasma-infected raw meat for 2-3 weeks, collecting their feces during this time to harvest parasites, and then killing the kittens and discarding them by 'incineration.'"
Bishop says he was shocked to hear that the USDA, an organization dedicated to enforcing animal welfare laws, was treating the life of animals with such contempt.
Bishop wants to know more about the history of the project, cost to taxpayers, number of kittens and cats used, alleged inaccurate pain reporting, kitten adoption, alternatives, and protocol renewal.
FOX 47's Megan Hiler will have more on this story at 10.
