Wayne Hsiung set for trial, Wayne Pacelle buys more beagles, Colorado dog & cat lab closes, & Born Free USA to get retired CDC monkeys
BLUE MOUNDS, Wisconsin; TORONTO, Ontario; DILLEY, Texas––The Ridglan beagles and the two Waynes, Wayne Pacelle and Wayne Hsiung, as of June 22, 2026 continued to dominate the news pertaining to animal use in biomedical research, but relatively little known Canadian lawyer Camille Labchuk meanwhile quietly scored the biggest win of 2026 for dogs, cats, and nonhuman primates used in biomedical research.
Lobbied by Animal Justice executive director Labchuk, the Ontario legislature on May 21, 2026 passed Bill 75, the “Keeping Criminals Behind Bars Act,” with riders amending the Ontario Animals for Research Act to prohibit any use of either dogs or cats in invasive medical testing.
(Facebook photo)
Ontario macaques also catch a break
“The bill also shields ‘prescribed animals’ like primates, even though primate research has not been prohibited,” explained Jacqueline So for Law Times News.
Inspired by an Animal Justice and Investigative Journalism Bureau exposé of cardiac experiments on dogs conducted at St. Joseph’s Hospital in London, Ontario, the Bill 75 riders also “cover the plight of macaque monkeys undergoing brain implants at York University, which was flagged by Last Chance for Animals,” So added.
Ontario, hosting the biggest biomedical research sector in Canada, with more than 2,000 laboratories employing some 72,000 scientists and technicians, thereby becomes the first Canadian province to ban any form of animal experimentation on dogs, cats, or nonhuman primates, So reported.
Detailed Shannon Nickerson in an Animal Justice blog posting, “The passage of the bill follows months of public outrage after Animal Justice released disturbing footage” from inside the St. Joseph’s Hospital laboratory, obtained by “two courageous whistleblowers.”
Seeking end to pound seizure
Added Nickerson, “This new law is a major victory for animals trapped in laboratories, but our work is far from over. Regulations currently being developed will determine how strong and effective the law truly becomes. They will define exactly which animals receive protection and what kinds of tests are prohibited.
“Animal Justice is already advocating for stronger provincial protections,” Nickerson wrote, “including clarifying that all invasive testing on cats and dogs is banned—not just medical research; removing legal exemptions that deny animals used in experiments the same protections other animals receive under Ontario law; and ending ‘pound seizure’—the practice of selling lost or abandoned animals into laboratories for experimentation.”
Ontario is the only Canadian province that ever mandated the sale of impounded animals to laboratories, if laboratories want them.
(Dane County Sheriff’s Office photos)
Wayne Hsiung & co-defendants set for September trial
On June 2, 2026, however, the two Waynes grabbed the headlines, as they have all spring.
In Madison, Wisconsin, Direct Action Everywhere founder and Simple Heart blogger Wayne Hsiung was ordered to stand trial from September 28 to October 9, 2026, along with co-defendants Aditya Aswani, Michelle Lunsky, and Dean Wyrzykowski, for allegedly stealing 22 beagles from the Ridglan Farms beagle breeding compound near Blue Mounds, Wisconsin, on March 15, 2026.
(See Ridglan Farms raid on March 15, 2026: were any beagles rescued?)
The March 15, 2026 action preceded the April 18, 2026 failed attempt of about 200 animal advocates led by Hsiung to conduct an “open rescue” of the remaining beagles at Ridglan Farms. The April 18, 2026 attempted “open rescue” ended with no beagles taken and 27 participants arrested.
Five participants, including Hsiung, Aswani, Lunsky, and Wyrzykowski, along with Melany Brieno, were on April 21, 2026 “each charged with felony burglary as a party to a crime, a Class F felony carrying a maximum penalty of 12 years and six months in prison and a $25,000 fine,” reported Quinn Clark for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
(See Ridglan Farms round #2: tear gas, mass busts, & no beagles rescued.)
First Amendment rights
Charges for each defendant resulting from the March 15, 2026 “open rescue” also include four counts apiece of felony burglary, plus “theft, attempted theft, and criminal damage to property,” detailed Elizabeth Lintonen for WTMJ radio news.
Alleged Hsiung, ahead of the June 2, 2026 hearing, “The state has not just charged us with four felonies, but has engaged in a series of efforts to undermine our most basic constitutional rights. We are fighting in court to ensure that these rights—including the right to present a defense at all—are preserved.
“And I am fine with this. Because the sacrifice is the point. The fact that I and my co-defendants are willing to take on the full power of the state, knowing they would use every underhanded tool in their toolkit, including barring us from First Amendment activity, should give the world confidence that we mean what we say.”
However, updated Lintonen, “The court modified the bail conditions for each activist, lifting a no-contact order that was preventing them from communication with each other, as well as a provision banning them from entering Dane County if not for court.”
The Ridglan defendants are represented by Chris Carraway, staff attorney for the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.
Wayne Pacelle buys beagles
Earlier on June 2, 2026, Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy president Wayne Pacelle announced at a Blue Mounds, Wisconsin online media conference, called on such short notice that ANIMALS 24-7 received an emailed invitation to attend an hour after it was over, that “This week, another 135 beagles will leave Ridglan Farms,” after “More than 1,500 dogs have already been transferred through a partnership led by the Center for a Humane Economy and rescue organizations,” involving reportedly a significant but unspecified transfer of cash to Ridglan Farms.
Said a Center for a Humane Economy media release, “The transfer is part of the broader effort launched earlier this year through a confidential accord involving the Center for a Humane Economy, Big Dog Ranch Rescue, and Ridglan Farms that has already resulted in the removal of more than 1,500 beagles from the facility.
“Of the dogs being transferred this week, 68 will be taken into the care of the Center for a Humane Economy and its rescue partners, while 67 will be transferred to Big Dog Ranch Rescue,” an organization for which Lara Trump, daughter-in-law of U.S. president Donald Trump, is a prominent volunteer fundraiser.
(See Ridglan Farms beagle purchase: smokescreen for Farm Bill disaster.)
(Beth Clifton collage based on Tami Drake photos from Facebook)
“How many beagles remain?”
“How many beagles remain at Ridglan Farms?” rhetorically asked Center for a Humane Economy employee Tami Drake.
“The honest answer is, nobody outside of Ridglan Farms knows.
“The last confirmed count we have,” Drake said, “comes from USDA inspection records from late January 2026, which documented 1,945 dogs on the breeding side and 156 dogs on the research side—a total of 2,101 beagles.
“Since then,” Drake continued, in addition to the 1,635 beagles purchased by the Center for a Humane Economy and Big Dog Ranch Rescue, and the 22 beagles taken by the ‘open rescue’ defendants, “We believe approximately 200 dogs or more may have been sold to a laboratory last month. But those figures alone do not tell us how many dogs remain.
“Puppies may have been born”
“Puppies may have been born. Dogs may have died. Dogs may have been transferred elsewhere,” Drake suggested.
“The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade & Consumer Protection inspected the facility last month,” Drake said, “but did not conduct a head count. The USDA has not publicly released a more recent count.
“As a result,” Drake finished, “any specific numbers currently circulating on social media are simply estimates and speculation.”
At the bottom of this issue lies a big, big ghost: John Wayne
Behind the apparent rivalry of the two Waynes, Wayne Pacelle & Wayne Hsiung, for the media spotlight, one might imagine the looming ghost of the actor John Wayne (1907-1979), whom both were more-or-less named after, wittingly by their parents or not, and a role model of sorts for both of them.
Pacelle throughout nearly 40 years in animal advocacy has emulated John Wayne the movie idol, who used his stature to speak out for what he believed in.
Hsiung more emulates the John Wayne “man of action” character, who walks into dangerous situations regardless of the risks.
Both would cite other role models. Pacelle would probably mention his early mentor Cleveland Amory; Hsiung mentions Martin Luther King Jr. & Mohandas Gandhi.
Middle American iconography
Both, though, hark back to more squarely Middle American iconography in appealing to Middle American sympathy for dogs, especially beagles, a top 10 most popular pet breed at least since 1900.
Little known to either Wayne, and little remembered by anyone still alive, sympathy for beagles and other dogs used in biomedical research was also front-and-center in the anti-vivisection movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
That long-forgotten movement quadrupled in size and momentum, as measured by articles indexed by NewspaperArchive.com, between the entry of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst into the cause circa 1887 and the peak of U.S. anti-vivisection activism before World War I.
Cause survived Hearst
Allied with campaigns to give women the vote, prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages, opposition to teaching evolution, and vegetarianism practiced for health and religious reasons, early 20th century anti-vivisectionism waned after women won the vote in 1919, and with the unpopularity of Prohibition, enacted in 1919.
But anti-vivisectionism remained a strong cause in the U.S. even after the collapse of much of the Hearst media empire during the Great Depression, losing momentum during World War II, not to recover until the rise of the late 20th century animal rights movement.
Red Beast Enterprises
Amid attention to Ridglan Farms, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals on May 19, 2026 announced the closure of the Red Beast Enterprises dog and cat laboratory in Fort Collins, Colorado, also known as High Quality Research.
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service publicly showed the facility’s certificate was canceled as of May 18, 2026,” reported Amanda Gilbert for KUSA television news in Denver.
“The animals were transferred to Kindness Ranch in Hartville, Wyoming, about two hours north of Fort Collins,” Gilbert said.
Kindness Ranch “took in 47 dogs and 19 cats from the facility,” executive director John Ramer told Gilbert.
“Red Beast Enterprises specialized in testing veterinary drugs and treatments for pets,” Gilbert detailed. “Last year, the USDA cited the laboratory for several violations,” including “‘delayed or undocumented treatments for cats and dogs, torn caging material, and food contaminated with fecal matter or shavings used for bedding,'” summarized Gilbert from the USDA inspection report.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Born Free USA gets the CDC monkeys
Science News online editor David Grimm meanwhile on May 15, 2026 described controversy coming from two directions over ” a plan by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention to retire” 162 rhesus and pigtail macaques to the Born Free USA Primate Sanctuary near Dilley, Texas.
Melissa Berg, associate director of animal resources at the Washington National Biomedical Research Center, had hoped the monkeys would be sent to the WNBRC breeding colony in Mesa, Arizona.
Both the WNBRC breeding colony and the Born Free USA primate sanctuary feature outdoor facilities for the resident monkeys, with the difference that Born Free USA animals are safely and permanently retired from biomedical research use.
“Born Free did not respond to requests for comment, and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention did not provide details to Science about the plan,” reported Grimm.
“No more monkeys!” said CDC
The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention “decided to phase out all its monkey research in November 2025—the first time a U.S. agency had ended its in-house nonhuman primate program,” explained Grimm.
“The scientists who worked with the animals—largely used in HIV-prevention studies—hoped they could be either transferred to other biomedical facilities, where the research could continue, or retired at one of the seven National Primate Research Centers,” Grimm wrote.
“But from the beginning,” Grimm assessed, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention “seemed set on sending the animals to a more naturalistic setting not affiliated with scientific research.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention deputy chief of staff Sam Beyda in October 2025 “reached out to the Peaceable Primate Sanctuary, one of the largest monkey refuges in North America,” located in Winamac, Indiana, but after telling the CDC that taking in the monkeys “would cost $14 million and require at least one year of preparation, Scott Kubisch, head of the Winamac, Indiana–based facility,” heard nothing” further, Grimm recounted.
The impending monkey transfer to the Born Free USA Primate Sanctuary was disclosed on May 213, 2026 “on Sam.gov, a site for government contractors,” Grimm said.
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I read that corporate titan Carl Icahn paid for all the beagles and coordinated the rescue operation through his nonprofit subsidiaries. Did Icahn sign a confidentially agreement?
Carl Icahn’s involvement, to our knowledge, is known only through his own statements via his organization IPAW Rescue Inc., which has advertised that it “helped fund the largest single transfer of dogs from a research breeding facility in recent history.” Accordingly, we don’t know whether he signed anything beyond a check, though a confidentiality agreement would seem likely.
Sharing with gratitude to you and to lawyer Labchuk on what for us is a meaningful victory.
I imagine I am not the only observer who is feeling rather stunned about the changes we’re seeing in the perception of animal research issues.
20 – 30 years ago, animal research seemed to be so untouchable that you could predict, like clockwork, that anytime you brought up an animal issue, the opposition would try to grab the steering wheel of the debate and turn it into one about medical testing.
Factory farming? Fur? Hunting? These topics have nothing to do with medical experimentation, but you could take bets on how quickly the other person would bring it up to take the spotlight off their own industry. (In Ohio in the 1990s, dove hunting interests ran dozens of political ads arguing that if the sport hunting of mourning doves was banned, babies would die because medical research would come to a halt. Yes, really.) If you were an animal advocate during this era, you learned quickly to anticipate this comment and to pivot back to the topic at hand.
But things seem to be changing once again, at least in regards to sympathetic/charismatic species in research–it’s no longer a given that the vast majority will support it under any circumstances.