Rubber bullet carnage as 1,000 animal welfare activists attack beagle breeding lab in Wisconsin

(SeaPRwire) –   Roughly 1,000 animal welfare activists who attempted to enter a beagle breeding and research facility in Wisconsin on Saturday were pushed back by police, who fired rubber bullets and pepper spray into the crowd and arrested the group’s leader.

This marks the second attempt in two months by protesters to remove beagles from the Ridglan Farms facility located in Blue Mounds, a small town around 25 miles (approximately 40 kilometers) southwest of Wisconsin’s capital, Madison.

Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett said in a video statement that 300 to 400 protesters were “violently trying to break into the property” and attack officers. He added that protesters ignored assigned areas for peaceful protest and blocked roads to stop emergency vehicles from accessing the site.

“This is not a peaceful protest,” Barrett said.

The sheriff’s department stated that a “significant” number of the roughly 1,000 protesters at the location were arrested, but did not release an exact total because processing was still ongoing as of Saturday afternoon.

Protesters tried to get past barricades including a manure-filled trench, hay bales and a barbed-wire fence. Some protesters did make it through the fence but could not enter the facility, which holds an estimated 2,000 beagles, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.

“I just feel defeated,” activist Julie Vrzeski told the newspaper around three hours into the operation after no dogs had been successfully removed from the facility.

Activists later moved from the Ridglan facility to hold a protest outside the jail in downtown Madison.

The group Coalition to Save the Ridglan Dogs had publicly announced plans to seize the dogs on Sunday, but launched its operation one day earlier. The X account of the group’s leader, Wayne Hsiung, posted a photo of him being arrested.

The sheriff’s department said a person who “recklessly” drove a pickup truck through the property’s front gate was arrested, an action that “preventing a potentially deadly outcome.”

Protesters broke into the same facility in March and took 30 beagles. Twenty-seven people were arrested at that time on trespassing and other charges.

Ridglan has denied mistreating animals but agreed in October to surrender its state breeding license effective July 1 as part of a deal to avoid prosecution on animal mistreatment charges.

On its website it says “no credible evidence of animal abuse, cruelty, mistreatment or neglect at Ridglan Farms has ever been presented or substantiated.”