Sen. Jeff Merkley, D.-Ore, and Rep. Brian Mast, R.-Fla., who were instrumental in ending the Department of Agriculture’s so-called “kitten slaughterhouse,” were visited on Thursday by two cats who were spared when the government program was shut down earlier this year.
“I’m so glad you’re freed,” Merkley said in his Senate office while holding survivor Delilah, who was brought to the Capitol along with another cat named Petite by the organization White Coat Waste Project.
The group is a non-profit that combats wasteful government spending on animal testing, and issued a report earlier this year showing U.S Department of Agriculture’s lab in Maryland had been performing gruesome and fatal testing on cats.
Merkley told NBC News that he’d been unaware of the USDA’s decades-old program until advocates presented the information to him.
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