Outcome of the “open rescue” of Ridglan beagles remains clear as the icy mud underfoot
BLUE MOUNDS, Wisconsin––Breaking into the Ridglan Farms beagle breeding compound on the morning of March 15, 2026, in freezing light rain a day ahead of the schedule that Direct Action Everywhere founder and Simple Heart blogger Wayne Hsiung had publicized since mid-January, activists under the banner of the Coalition to Save the Ridglan Dogs claimed to have rescued 23 beagles from substandard conditions and short painful, futures of use in biomedical research.
Ridglan Farms, however, told WMTV of Madison, Wisconsin, that all of the beagles had been recovered.
Conceded Hsiung, “Police intercepted two vans carrying the rescued dogs and arrested the activists, who were on their way to bring the dogs to their forever homes.”
Updated “Wayne’s team,” in early evening, “Folks, while some dogs were taken back, 22 beagles are STILL SAFE.”
[An update from Wayne Hsiung via Simple Heart is posted as the first comment below.]
Wayne Hsiung & Alexandra Paul among the busted
Hsiung himself was among those arrested, his Facebook page stated.
Another reported arrestee was former Baywatch star Alexandra Paul, a prominent animal advocate for decades longer than her prominence on television.
Posted her younger brother Jonathan Paul to Facebook, “Proud of my sister, Alexandra Paul, for helping rescue beagles from vivisectors at Ridglan Farms. Open rescue is not my style––I’m an old school animal liberationist––but if they can rescue animals from being tortured, then good job. Power to the people for standing up to oppression.”
Pickup truck vs. vans
The Animal Activism Collective and several other social media commentators posted that, “A man believed to be an employee of Ridglan Farms allegedly used a truck in an attempt to run down activists who peacefully entered the property to rescue beagles. Afterward, according to activists, he slashed three tires of the vehicle that was meant to transport dogs to safety.”
ANIMALS 24-7 found no third-party confirmation of that account, but hazy video posted by participants did show a pickup truck apparently trying to block activists from leaving the Ridglan Farms kennels in several vans hauling dogs.
(Wayne Hsiung photo)
For want of a nail, was a beagle lost?
At the kennels, video also showed Hsiung apparently unsuccessfully trying to pry open a door with a wrecking bar, assisted by an unidentified woman with a hammer, instead of simply using a nail to pop the doornails out of the externally mounted hinges and then lifting the door away, undamaged.
Storming the Ridglan Farms premises to rescue beagles did not exactly parallel storming the Bastille St. Antoine, at cost of 94 lives to save seven prisoners, the July 14, 1789 event that precipitated the French Revolution.
The 500 “open rescuers” Hsiung had hoped to recruit turned out to be “100+,” according to participants.
Barely three dozen rescuers appeared in participants’ video.
Light coverage
The 23 beagles temporarily liberated [Hsiung later said 31], among as many as 2,500 housed at Ridglan Farms, may not even have been spared an eventual vivisector’s guillotine.
Neither did the Ridglan “open rescue” attract the sustained mass media notice that participants had hoped for. At the top of the WMTV news in mid-morning, the Ridglan “open rescue” dropped out of the news lineup in mid-afternoon, but returned to the top by 6:00 p.m.
Brief accounts based on Ridglan statements and police reports were also carried by Madison-based local channel 3000.
Eight years of pressure
But the Ridglan “open rescue” did revive social media activist awareness of Ridglan Farms, among the last firms in the U.S. still supplying beagles to biomedical research, slated for closure by July 1, 2026, following eight years of pressure from Hsiung, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Animal Wellness Action, and the Center for a Humane Economy.
Summarized the Hopeful Herbivore page on Facebook, “After investigations of animal cruelty and receiving over 300 violations of animal welfare standards, Ridglan agreed to surrender its Wisconsin breeding license and stop selling dogs for research, to avoid criminal charges.
“However, the facility was permitted to still operate,” and to breed “for internal research purposes after that date.”
Blogged Hsiung on January 6, 2026, after Ridglan Farms made clear that no beagles would be released to rescuers despite the impending shutdown, “I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way for us to save the dogs is for citizens to head to Wisconsin and just start rescuing them ourselves.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
“13 activists remained on the property”
Reported Shaina Nijhawan for WMTV, “Thirteen activists remained on the property Sunday afternoon,” after either four or eight were arrested earlier, “waiting to be taken into custody by law enforcement.
“The Dane County Sheriff’s Office said deputies responded to a call,” apparently from Hsiung himself, who made the call on video, “reporting 50 to 60 protesters illegally entering private property at the facility.
“Officials said all animals that were taken have been recovered and none were injured. Authorities described interactions with protesters as ‘somewhat peaceful.’
“Ridglan Farms,” Nijhawan continued, “said activists cut a chain-link fence and a locked gate before attempting to enter several buildings using sledgehammers, electric saws, and crowbars.
“In a statement, attorney Eric McLeod, representing Ridglan Farms, said the company plans to press charges.
“Caged, poisoned, even mutilated”
“These dogs are caged, poisoned and even mutilated at Ridglan Farms,” Hsiung charged. “If any individual had been implicated in these crimes, the dogs would have been seized and protected.”
Hsiung’s hopes for the success of the Ridglan “open rescue,” and for the eventual acquittal of the participants, were buoyed earlier in the week by the acquittal by a Liverpool Crown Court jury of his wife, Rose Patterson, for a similar action in England.
Patterson, with about two dozen other activists associated with the British group Animal Rising, “cut through the fence in the middle of the night” on December 20, 2022 at MBR Acres, also a beagle breeding facility supplying laboratories, Hsuing blogged on March 11, 2026.
“Acquitted of all charges”
The activists “quickly overwhelmed the guards, who shouted at them to stop,” Hsiung wrote. “Doors were broken down with crowbars and hammers. And before the night was over, the troublemakers had taken 18 precious items from their target.
“On March 9, 2026,” Hsiung recounted, “five of them,” including Patterson, “were acquitted of all charges.
“The defense won,” Hsiung assessed, despite the earlier convictions of four other participants in the MBR Acres break-in at a separate trial, because “The public is increasingly supportive of animal rights. The jury heard that dogs were being stabbed in the heart and cut open for their organs, and they revolted against it—even when the government told them that they must accept the abuse as legal.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Don’t argue. Tell stories.”
Lessons Hsiung, himself a lawyer, drew from the Animal Rising acquittal, began with “Don’t argue. Tell stories. Rose told the story,” Hsiung explained, “of having a little puppy she named Love torn from her arms, after he was rescued from a cage, and of crying as he was taken by the police back to MBR.
“Build trust—even if it comes at a cost,” Hsiung continued. “One of the most hotly-debated decisions within the defense team was whether Rose should introduce so-called character evidence from a renowned zoologist and broadcaster, and former president of the Royal SPCA, Chris Packham.
“Introducing this evidence,” Hsiung explained, “would also open the door for the prosecution to cross-examine Rose on her three prior criminal convictions: criminal damage, aggravated trespass, and disturbing the peace—all from animal rights protests.
(Zoe Rosenberg Facebook photo)
“Speak as a servant”
“Rose decided to move forward despite these risks, and it paid off. The jury was so moved by Packham’s statement that it asked for it to be read again at the start of deliberations. And Rose was forthright in her answers about her prior activist history, including owning her mistakes, e.g., accidentally kicking and breaking a police taillight during a protest.
“There is a moral here for all advocates,” Hsiung emphasized. “Build trust first. Then make your case.”
Finally, Hsiung recommended, “Speak as a servant, not an ideologue. The prosecution’s primary argument against the defendants was that they were trying to impose their will on others, no matter the rules. In the previous trials that ended in conviction, the rescuers fell into [the prosecution] trap by focusing on their own feelings. That focus reinforced [the prosecution] story: these are people who don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks.
“In contrast, in the most recent trial, the defendants focused on serving others , rather than defending their own ideology.”
“Right to rescue”
A day later, on March 12, 2026, Hsiung outlined what he called, “A simple guide to rescuing animals in Wisconsin who are victims of criminal abuse.”
Recalled Hsiung, “In March 2024, two co-defendants and I were slated to go to trial after being accused of burglary and theft for removing three distressed beagles from cages at Ridglan Farms. The charges were dismissed on the first day of trial, and we turned the tables on the industry by successfully filing a petition to bring criminal charges against Ridglan instead.
“But as a result of the dismissal of those charges,” Hsiung said, as result of the Ridglan agreement with Dane County to close the Ridglan facility by July 1, 2026, “the legal argument for the right to rescue was never properly developed in a court of law.
“Persons or things”
“The theory behind the right to rescue,” Hsiung explained, “has significant implications for the future of animal rights, including the fundamental question of whether animals are ‘persons’ or ‘things.’
“Many of these theories have not been tested,” Hsiung acknowledged after outlining his arguments, “and may be rejected by judges. However, the main conclusion is clear: there are numerous provisions of law that plausibly create a right to rescue animals from abuse. While many of these theories may initially lose in court, that does not mean they are wrong.”
(Wayne Hsiung photo)
2017 Ridglan rescue
Hsiung, 46, left Direct Action Everywhere in 2020 to run unsuccessfully for a city council seat in Berkeley, California.
The initial action in Hsiung’s long struggle to close Ridglan and rescue the beagles there, came in 2017, when he entered the Ridglan breeding kennels “in the middle of the night on a mission to draw attention to what was happening inside,” Bryan Polcyn of FOX6 News in Milwaukee reported in 2024.
Videos Hsiung and colleagues recorded showed “rows upon rows of stacked metal cages filled with 1-2 beagles each inside a long, windowless metal shed,” Polcyn described.
“The activists removed three beagles from their cages and left, then published the evidence of what they had done.
“In 2021, four years after the activists removed the dogs,” Polcyn continued, “the Dane County district attorney filed criminal charges against Hsiung and two others for burglary and theft.
Ridglan dropped charges
“The case was set for trial on March 22, 2024. But just two weeks before it started, Ridglan Farms asked the district attorney to drop the charges.
“Hsiung and his colleagues objected to the charges being dismissed. On April 15, 2024, he and a group called Dane4Dogs filed a petition for the appointment of a special prosecutor to charge Ridglan Farms with mistreatment of animals.”
Dane County Judge Rhonda Lanford granted the petition.
(See Did the Ridglan beagles win in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election?)
(Beth Clifton collage)
Ridglan settles
The outcome, reported Science News online editor David Grimm on October 29, 2025, was that, “To avoid criminal prosecution for allegations of animal abuse, the second-largest breeder of research dogs in the United States will stop providing animals to research labs around the country,” according to the settlement agreement.
This, Grimm remembered, “came on the heels of a massive animal welfare scandal that resulted the 2022 closure of Envigo—a Cumberland, Virginia, breeder that was then the second-largest supplier of research beagles in the U.S.”
(See 4,500+ beagles freed from laboratory use by judge’s order.)
“We’ll be fighting that feature”
Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy founder Wayne Pacelle objected at the time that Ridglan was permitted to continue any operations at all.
“We’ll be fighting that feature of the agreement and working to get those dogs out of the confinement facility and into loving homes,” Pacelle pledged, claiming some successes in that,
“The Dane County Board of Supervisors voted 30-5 to urge the state to revoke Ridglan’s breeder license. The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture also rescinded Ridglan’s special exception allowing them to ship puppies under seven weeks old — something they have been doing for years.”
“Now we are focused,” Pacelle said, “on targeting Marshall BioResources in upstate New York, the last major beagle breeder in the United States.
“Meanwhile,” Pacelle added, “we are working with Food & Drug Administration commissioner Marty Makary to hasten [a promised] move to phase out all use of dogs, primates, and other animals and to create a new norm in safety and efficacy testing for drugs, chemicals, pesticides, and other commercially available products.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
Marshall Farms, in North Rose, New York, currently houses about 16,000 beagles, Grimm reported.
“The only other major research dog breeder ,” Grimm said, “is Oak Hill Genetics—based in Franklin County, Illinois—which houses about 800 hounds.”
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The following is excerpted from a much longer installment of Wayne Hsiung’s Simple Heart blog, recited on the morning of March 16, 2026 to his legal support team over the telephone from jail:
I’m in jail for rescuing dogs. It’s where I was meant to be.
Yesterday, around 100 people walked to Ridglan Farms to rescue dogs from imminent torture or death. We took 31 little pups out of their cages and into our arms. They looked up in the sky, licked our faces frantically, and felt hugs as we wrapped them in towels. It was each dog’s first hug—indeed, her first feeling of softness—after a lifetime in a vivisector’s cage.
27 of us were arrested after we refused to stop our rescue effort. 5 of us—Alexandra, Dean, Raquel, Aditya, and me—remain in jail today. And this is where we were meant to be.
This is not because the charges brought against us are just. The arrests are the latest example of the state’s efforts to cover up criminal abuse of dogs by targeting their rescuers. And yesterday, representatives of Ridglan slashed our tires, smashed into one of our vans with their car, and drove up into a field at high speed to threaten peaceful grandmas and flower wielding college students. Strangely, these violent actions have led to no arrest.
No, the reason that I say we were meant to be in jail is precisely because it highlights a broken feature of our system. After decades of trying every method to get anyone in power to hear the cries of the pups, going to jail is our tactic of last resort. And there are three reasons I believe this tactic will prevail.
The first is that the drama of incarceration brings attention.
The second value served by jail is enhancing our credibility.
A third and most important reason we are meant to be in jail, however, is perhaps the most surprising. And that is that jail is an empathic space, one where society (if we are willing to look) can start to understand the suffering of other beings.
It is through my own suffering that I can help others understand the urgency of rescue. To have empathy for all those beings who are trapped in a cage. The jail is not just the right place for me and my fellow rescuers. It is the only place for us.
Until, someday soon, every animal is freed.
These breeding facilities are hellholes of cruelty beyond imagination, and sicken all ethical persons. We have known of the torture and torment of animals who suffer unbelievable agony for little purpose for many years now and our pleas to legislators to end this broken system has always fallen on the deafest of ears, especially by those facilities which financially profit from its evil practices or legislators who benefit from the largess of contributions to their political campaigns.
Thanks to the good work of many worthy animal groups, vivisection is coming to be seen as primarily senseless as organoids are proving to be useful and successful alternatives and one is witnessing movement, even by those in this current Administration to transition away from it.
Those valiant persons who rescue or attempt to rescue the animal victims are much admired by all who learn of their courageous work. Thank you for this overview of this vile system and one can only continue to plead for more closures as we are committed to do!
I believe article states that all beagles were retrieved by Ridglan. Bravo to Wayne and crew for a valiant effort to rescue victims from a hideous fate.
How many beagles ended up with whom is still a bit hazy. Wayne Hsiung’s latest statement indicates that 31 beagles were removed from their cages, of whom eight were returned to Ridglan by police, leaving 23 in the care of the open rescuers.
Animal testing needs to be stopped. There is no need for it as there are now scientific ways to test drugs or chemicals in a test lab without needing live subjects or body parts harvested from Test animals. Lab-grown body parts are now available and these should be forced to be used anyway.
Absolutely agree. With the advancement of AI, animal testing should be obsolete. AI can do anything at this point so why are animals still tortured? Makes no sense. I thought animal cruelty was a federal crime.
Scientific uses of animals are exempt from cruelty laws at all levels.
Animal testing and experimentation was NEVER a good thing, because animal physiology is not the same as humans.
Thankfully, because of newer scientific methods of testing and computer models, etc., there is no need to waste animals’ lives on pointless studies that will never benefit anyone or anything. In fact, in recent years, the only ugly reason for ANY animal testing was grant money for unscrupulous researchers for totally pointless experiments and the corrupt hospitals that allowed this, as well as legislators who took politcal money from these entities.
What makes no sense at all is when companies that are stopped from their cruel experiment business are not required to allow the animals to be taken to sanctuaries for adoption into good homes.
Money is always at the bottom of this. Money is going to be the end of everything decent if these corrupt companies don’t stop making it their sole motivation for everything.
SAVE THE BEAGLES!!! DO WHATEVER YOU HAVE TO, SAVE THE POOR DOGS!!!