The Environmental Protection Agency is offering some of its testing animals for adoption, the first concrete step toward its goal of phasing out taxpayer-funded animal experiments.
The first adoptees are rats and zebrafish at the agency’s North Carolina research lab.
“Adopt love. Save a life,” says an adoption poster announcing the program.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility revealed the program, which the EPA confirmed in a statement to The Washington Times. The EPA said it is behind schedule because of Biden administration decisions that erased a 2035 deadline for phasing out animal testing.
“As animals continued to be tested by the agency because of the intentional lack of progress on efforts to reduce animal testing over the past four years, the Trump EPA is working to get as many of the animals into loving homes as possible,” the agency told The Times.
The fate of the animals has become a significant dispute for the EPA, researchers and animal rights advocates, who argue over the necessity of subjecting them to testing.
During the first Trump administration, the EPA committed to phasing out testing, with a goal of a 30% reduction by this year and a full stop by 2035.
The Biden administration erased those deadlines, saying scientists felt they needed to continue testing.
Under the Trump administration, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has recommitted the agency to “get back on track” in curbing testing.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility opposes the phaseout and said Mr. Zeldin is making a mistake.
“EPA is undergoing an ill-advised scientific self-lobotomy,” said Kyla Bennett, the nonprofit organization’s science policy director. “Instead of developing a strategic plan for meeting its scientific needs, Trump’s EPA has decided to largely abandon scientific research except when it is specifically mandated by law, thus embracing some short-term savings to its long-term detriment.”
The White Coat Waste Project, which wants to end federal animal testing, hailed Mr. Zeldin for moving ahead with the retirement plans for some animals.
“We’re proud of our hard-fought win, and we won’t stop until the last animal is out,” said Anthony Bellotti, president of the project.
In its statement this week, the EPA said it was working toward both goals.
“As EPA works to get back on track reducing animal testing, the agency will continue adhering to the gold standard of science when conducting research to support its statutory responsibilities,” the agency said.
The EPA said some animals can’t be adopted because of exposure to harmful pollutants. They will “be given humane end-of-life care.”
EPA uses animal testing to help determine toxicity levels of exposure to pesticides and chemicals. The agency’s lab in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina is thought to have about 20,000 animals.
Rats have long been mainstays of testing, but zebrafish, a type of minnow, have become popular subjects for testing how chemicals affect biological development.
In the first Trump administration, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler committed to the testing phaseout and promised to work on retirement plans for some of the animals, particularly bunnies the agency had on hand.
Some of those were used for tests that involved checking their sperm as part of a broader exploration of the “worldwide drop in human semen quality.”
Under the Biden administration, those retirement plans were scrapped.
Instead, the EPA euthanized Jasper and Leo, test bunnies that developed health issues. When Jasper’s veterinarian suggested finding a new home for the 9-year-old bunny, the project’s lead investigator refused, according to documents White Coat provided to The Times.
Jasper was euthanized instead.
“He was a very good rabbit,” the veterinarian said in an email announcing Jasper’s death.