The Ridglan beagles were saved. The question now is whether animal welfare can document their outcomes with the same confidence that it celebrates their rescue.
1. I assume you are addressing the myriad rescue groups because the public does not care about the outcome of animals in large rescues. Or, even what happens to their own individual dogs when they become unwanted.
2. What makes you assume that collecting masses of DATA transforms into great programs?
Ballad, I’m less assuming the public cares than arguing that rescue groups should be able to show outcomes whether the public asks or not. And I don’t think collecting data automatically creates good programs, only that without basic records, it becomes much harder to tell the difference between good programs, weak ones, and stories that can’t be independently checked.
Outstanding in depth journalism and long overdue now that large scale transports are touted as solutions for nationwide shelter overcapacity crisis and community overpopulation.-hording and strays. We are now in the vicinity of well over a million shelter animals interstate transported since 2024, many/most in harder to adopt categories, with no documentation of their final destinations or outcomes, often handed to non-501c3 non-profit intermediaries with no mandatory reporting obligations. The trail usually goes cold immediately after "wheels up" exporting shelter documents animals as Live Outcome and adopted but no entry to whom.
The issue of profiteering, transport donation fraud I first remember hearing about was during Katrina aftermath, too many credible stories including eyewitness accounts to dismiss, reporting HSUS and BFAS rushing in to hurricane ravaged areas coinciding with heavy fundraising, to "rescue" abandoned pets but what was an enormous operation to ship purebreds and highly adoptable animals for profitable sales in the Northeast/New England and the undesirable dogs or those with treatable conditions dogs were discretely destroyed. Again from eyewitness accounts of DISASTER CAPITALISM from shocked, disillusioned volunteers. too many to dismiss.
Now shelter animal interstate transport is the new "wild-west" gold rush attracting those with major investment and biomedical backgrounds while amassing donations and money from somewhere.
Yes, the flight routes don't make sense for advocate investigators in Arizona, California, Tennessee and Texas who have tracked. For the Pima County BFAS "hub" collecting animals from surrounding southern Arizona counties, on one occasion 3-4 adult cats were flown down from Utah to be added to a group of 50, only to be flown back up to Colorado, Nebraska and unannounced stop in Oklahoma Westheimer small airport owned by UofOK--- location of research using animals.
For those interested, just enter the tail number in "flight tracker.com" or other public flight tracking dot com.
I'm fairly sure there are plenty of adult cats in Colorado and Nebraska without being flown from Utah via southern Arizona. Now the Pima County hub flights are unannounced and secritive, BFAS doesn't appreciate attempts to track outcomes and destinations, with few exceptions, animals can't be located.
So, with high-profile entities and publicity with heavy donation fundraising involved in the Ridgeland Beagle rescue, there is a responsibility to demonstrate and SET A STANDARD for a publicly verifiable chain-of-custody, destination(s) including intermediaries and outcomes in what is a wild west of donations, grants with no responsibility to verify claims as to legitimate adoption destinations of many aged, large breed and with medical, behavioral needs--- magnetic attraction for grift.
Especially, with few minor exceptions, most every city town and region's shelters and communities are in overpopulation crisis so WHERE are they going??
Thanks Carmen, I appreciate you bringing the broader transport picture into the conversation. My aim here is narrower and more basic: if large-scale transport is going to be treated as a solution, then the groups involved should be able to show a publicly verifiable paper trail for where animals went and what happened next. That doesn’t solve every concern you raise, but it would at least make outcomes easier to test instead of simply trust.
Yes, 100%! Ridgeland Beagle Rescue is the perfect opportunity to show how large rescue transports should be documented against what is currently the a wild west of large scale transport rescue fundraising for the many hundreds of thousands of animals without publicity. Thank you for reporting and doggedly asking questions!
When large-scale rescue transports started making news, I remember my late stepdad inquiring how you know they actually went where they said. As a former long-distance trucker, logistics were important in his eyes. This case is a classic example of the need for transparency.
Thank you, AJ, that’s exactly the question, and your stepdad’s trucking perspective gets to the heart of it. In any large transport operation, logistics shouldn’t disappear the moment the wheels start rolling; there should be a record showing where animals went, who received them, and what happened next.
Thanks, Ed, for doing all the electronic legwork you have in sniffing out the details in The Case of the Missing Beagle. The annals of crime, in the news practically every day, are full of cases of unidentified human remains found, murder victims identified years & even decades after disappearance, & even cases of people presumed dead long ago turning up alive, after remains were misidentified previous to 2000, by which time DNA identification became standard & accurate. For that reason, we are not particularly inclined to make a federal case of the obviously embarrassing misidentification of Omelette based on jumping to conclusions, if in fact DNA scanning of the suspected remains was done & failed. On the other hand, in an area where beagling, i.e. hunting small game with large packs of beagles, is quite common, where shelters have traditionally been flooded with beagles lost by hunters, it is questionable from the get-go why truckloads of beagles were brought south from Wisconsin in the first place, even as truckloads of "rescue" beagles are still going north for adoption from the same region. Beth & I had occasion to help a neighbor trap one just a couple of years ago, who had done what beagles usually do when given any chance of escape.
Thank you both, that’s a very fair distinction. The bigger issue for me isn’t simply the embarrassment of a mistaken identification, but what the episode revealed about how uncertainty, transport, and post-rescue accountability are handled once the dogs leave the facility. Your point about regional beagle supply and demand is an important one too, and one that deserves more scrutiny.
Two questions:
1. I assume you are addressing the myriad rescue groups because the public does not care about the outcome of animals in large rescues. Or, even what happens to their own individual dogs when they become unwanted.
2. What makes you assume that collecting masses of DATA transforms into great programs?
Ballad, I’m less assuming the public cares than arguing that rescue groups should be able to show outcomes whether the public asks or not. And I don’t think collecting data automatically creates good programs, only that without basic records, it becomes much harder to tell the difference between good programs, weak ones, and stories that can’t be independently checked.
Outstanding in depth journalism and long overdue now that large scale transports are touted as solutions for nationwide shelter overcapacity crisis and community overpopulation.-hording and strays. We are now in the vicinity of well over a million shelter animals interstate transported since 2024, many/most in harder to adopt categories, with no documentation of their final destinations or outcomes, often handed to non-501c3 non-profit intermediaries with no mandatory reporting obligations. The trail usually goes cold immediately after "wheels up" exporting shelter documents animals as Live Outcome and adopted but no entry to whom.
The issue of profiteering, transport donation fraud I first remember hearing about was during Katrina aftermath, too many credible stories including eyewitness accounts to dismiss, reporting HSUS and BFAS rushing in to hurricane ravaged areas coinciding with heavy fundraising, to "rescue" abandoned pets but what was an enormous operation to ship purebreds and highly adoptable animals for profitable sales in the Northeast/New England and the undesirable dogs or those with treatable conditions dogs were discretely destroyed. Again from eyewitness accounts of DISASTER CAPITALISM from shocked, disillusioned volunteers. too many to dismiss.
Now shelter animal interstate transport is the new "wild-west" gold rush attracting those with major investment and biomedical backgrounds while amassing donations and money from somewhere.
Yes, the flight routes don't make sense for advocate investigators in Arizona, California, Tennessee and Texas who have tracked. For the Pima County BFAS "hub" collecting animals from surrounding southern Arizona counties, on one occasion 3-4 adult cats were flown down from Utah to be added to a group of 50, only to be flown back up to Colorado, Nebraska and unannounced stop in Oklahoma Westheimer small airport owned by UofOK--- location of research using animals.
For those interested, just enter the tail number in "flight tracker.com" or other public flight tracking dot com.
I'm fairly sure there are plenty of adult cats in Colorado and Nebraska without being flown from Utah via southern Arizona. Now the Pima County hub flights are unannounced and secritive, BFAS doesn't appreciate attempts to track outcomes and destinations, with few exceptions, animals can't be located.
So, with high-profile entities and publicity with heavy donation fundraising involved in the Ridgeland Beagle rescue, there is a responsibility to demonstrate and SET A STANDARD for a publicly verifiable chain-of-custody, destination(s) including intermediaries and outcomes in what is a wild west of donations, grants with no responsibility to verify claims as to legitimate adoption destinations of many aged, large breed and with medical, behavioral needs--- magnetic attraction for grift.
Especially, with few minor exceptions, most every city town and region's shelters and communities are in overpopulation crisis so WHERE are they going??
Thanks Carmen, I appreciate you bringing the broader transport picture into the conversation. My aim here is narrower and more basic: if large-scale transport is going to be treated as a solution, then the groups involved should be able to show a publicly verifiable paper trail for where animals went and what happened next. That doesn’t solve every concern you raise, but it would at least make outcomes easier to test instead of simply trust.
Yes, 100%! Ridgeland Beagle Rescue is the perfect opportunity to show how large rescue transports should be documented against what is currently the a wild west of large scale transport rescue fundraising for the many hundreds of thousands of animals without publicity. Thank you for reporting and doggedly asking questions!
When large-scale rescue transports started making news, I remember my late stepdad inquiring how you know they actually went where they said. As a former long-distance trucker, logistics were important in his eyes. This case is a classic example of the need for transparency.
Thank you, AJ, that’s exactly the question, and your stepdad’s trucking perspective gets to the heart of it. In any large transport operation, logistics shouldn’t disappear the moment the wheels start rolling; there should be a record showing where animals went, who received them, and what happened next.
Thanks, Ed, for doing all the electronic legwork you have in sniffing out the details in The Case of the Missing Beagle. The annals of crime, in the news practically every day, are full of cases of unidentified human remains found, murder victims identified years & even decades after disappearance, & even cases of people presumed dead long ago turning up alive, after remains were misidentified previous to 2000, by which time DNA identification became standard & accurate. For that reason, we are not particularly inclined to make a federal case of the obviously embarrassing misidentification of Omelette based on jumping to conclusions, if in fact DNA scanning of the suspected remains was done & failed. On the other hand, in an area where beagling, i.e. hunting small game with large packs of beagles, is quite common, where shelters have traditionally been flooded with beagles lost by hunters, it is questionable from the get-go why truckloads of beagles were brought south from Wisconsin in the first place, even as truckloads of "rescue" beagles are still going north for adoption from the same region. Beth & I had occasion to help a neighbor trap one just a couple of years ago, who had done what beagles usually do when given any chance of escape.
Thank you both, that’s a very fair distinction. The bigger issue for me isn’t simply the embarrassment of a mistaken identification, but what the episode revealed about how uncertainty, transport, and post-rescue accountability are handled once the dogs leave the facility. Your point about regional beagle supply and demand is an important one too, and one that deserves more scrutiny.