Your voices were heard! 

On December 20, 2019, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020 (HR 3164) was signed into law. One provision in the massive spending package was a directive to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to restore Animal Welfare Act (AWA) records to its on-line searchable database, the Animal Care Public Search Tool. 

For the past three years, NAVS has been a vocal proponent for replacing these records— and thousands of NAVS supporters like you took action through the NAVS Advocacy Center in support of restoring the searchability to APHIS records.

And now, because of you, it’s happening! 

In a report released by APHIS on February 18, the agency announced that it will “restore on its website the searchable database and its contents that were available on January 30, 2017, and all content generated since that date,” as required by the recently passed law. APHIS has 60 days to post records without redactions (blacked out information), except for signatures. 

APHIS will also be posting AWA inspection reports (including any non-compliant items), animal inventories, teachable moments and final AWA and Horse Protections Act enforcement records. Whether the website will be reformatted to allow meaningful searches to be conducted on animal welfare data remains to be seen. 

We hope you will take a moment to celebrate this success with NAVS. Thanks to all our determined advocates who helped to pass this measure and restore much-needed transparency to animal welfare records.

The restoration of APHIS’ animal use records is a huge victory, and it’s one that was only possible because of the support of people like you. Your tax-deductible gift to NAVS will help build on this victory and ensure further progress on behalf of animals. Thank you! 

DONATE »