Why This Matters: Ridglan Farms’ USDA record tells a damning story: the same inspector has led the facility’s inspections for over a decade, further exposing the sham of federal “oversight” in animal research.

As Ridglan Farms scrambles to sidestep an overdue reckoning—a court-ordered animal cruelty investigation, hundreds of state-documented regulatory violations, and the emergency suspension of its lead veterinarian’s license—the disgraced dog breeder is clinging to a tired, familiar defense:

“Everything’s fine,” Ridglan insists, “because the USDA has said so.”

Only, when Ridglan says “the USDA,” it really means one man.

Per USDA records since 2014, Ridglan has been visited by the USDA on 15 separate occasions, with those visits documented across 28 inspection records. In 25 of these records, the USDA recorded no violations.

That’s the story Ridglan is selling: Nothing to see here. The feds came, and the feds ok’ed.

But, here’s what Ridglan isn’t saying:

Every single one of those 28 inspection records was prepared by the same USDA representative: Veterinary Medical Officer Scott Welch.

Not multiple “experts,” as Ridglan would want us to believe. Just one USDA representative, over and over again… 

And, when you dig even deeper, the cracks in Ridglan’s narrative—and in the federal regulatory facade they prop up—only widen.

Of the 28 available inspection records:

• Welch reported conducting 24 of the inspections alone.
  
• Welch documented violations during only three inspections: one in 2017, and two in 2023.
  
• Both of the 2023 violations—representing all but one of the violations Welch has ever documented at Ridglan, and the only recent ones—were recorded during the only two inspections for which he was accompanied by USDA Supervisory Animal Care Specialists.

By the numbers: 

• When Welsh worked alone, he documented violations at Ridglan on a single occasion, or about 4% of the time.
  
• When Welsh was accompanied by other USDA staff, that rate jumped to 50%.
  
• And, when that other staff took the form of USDA  “Animal Care Specialists,” that rate jumped to 100%.

That’s what the USDA’s own records show, and it begs the unsettling question:

What would Ridglan’s federal inspection record look like if someone other than Welch—or, simply, certain others alongside Welch—had been routinely assigned to these inspections?

Disturbingly, this isn’t the first time Welch has been tied to a USDA-licensed facility at the center of a high-profile animal welfare scandal.

Welch was also involved in one of the USDA’s most notorious enforcement failures: the case of Daniel Moulton, a Class B dealer of chinchillas to research labs, whose horrific operation has become a case study in what has been termed the “systemic failure” of the USDA.

Over the course of years, Welch and his USDA colleagues documented hundreds of Animal Welfare Act (AWA) violations at Moulton’s facility, including:

• “filthy and fly-infested” conditions “with exposed nails and sharp wire points protruding inside cages, undiscovered dead animals, and scores of sick and unhealthy chinchillas that do not receive adequate veterinary care.”
  
• “an excrementridden, understaffed barn housing lethargic animals with weeping, open wounds; putrid abscesses; and, most commonly, infected eyes.”
• “poor or nonexistent veterinary care that,” in the words of a USDA lawyer, “caused animals’ ‘immense avoidable suffering.’”

And, yet, despite 213 documented AWA violations—many of them severe—it took the USDA more than four years to take any enforcement action. 

When it finally did act by filing a formal administrative complaint, it took another three years for the complaint to receive a hearing—and, in the meantime, the USDA allowed Moulton to continue operating as usual, with inspectors recording violations in “seven out of eight inspections after the complaint was filed.” 

But that’s not the worst of it: also while its formal complaint was pending, the USDA actually facilitated Moulton’s continued operation by “help[ing] Moulton with the paperwork to renew his license to operate as a dealer.”

Ultimately, a judge revoked Moulton’s Class B license, calling the “multiyear record of animal welfare violations . . . ‘absolutely astounding.’” 

Yet, still, Moulton was not called to account for what he had done and was allowed to keep going: 

• Moulton was fined only $18,000—“less than 1 percent of the amount allowed under the law.” 
• Moulton was allowed to “keep nearly 700 chinchillas languishing on his ranch for months while he decided—and was granted multiple extensions to decide—whether or not to file an appeal. (Less than a month after the judge’s ruling, “the USDA once again documented multiple failures to comply with the law as the chinchillas at the ranch continued to suffer from a lack of adequate veterinary care and staffing.”)

Though hard to fathom, this case is not a one-off.

As put plainly by a former USDA lawyer:

“‘It takes these extreme situations where a person has years and years of severe violations to get USDA to do anything about it’ beyond follow-up inspections.”

What does that mean for the dogs at Ridglan, where evidence of severe violations abounds but the USDA representative assigned has documented virtually nothing?

Just like Moulton, Ridglan:

• Supplies animals to the animal research industry.
• Claims that it provides adequate veterinary care and is being unfairly targeted.
• Is “the subject of a criminal investigation under [state] animal cruelty law.” (Moulton’s investigation was spurred by a PETA undercover investigation, which found that “Moulton denied chinchillas veterinary care for open wounds, exposed bones, abscessed and ruptured mammary tissue, and protruding or pus-filled eyes, and that he left one animal to die after [his] dog attacked it.” Yet, no state charges were ever filed. Turns out, the ”local prosecutor, who was Facebook friends with Moulton, transferred the case” to the county, which “decided to leave the matter with the USDA.”)

And, just like Moulton, Ridglan is counting on the USDA to do what it does best: nothing at all to protect animals.

Far from Ridglan’s suggestion that its USDA inspection records demonstrate compliance, they actually betray a regulatory sham. 

One in which:

• A single inspector can control a facility’s record for over a decade.
• The recording of violations depends on who’s in the room.
• And, even hundreds of violations documented by the agency itself over a period of years, doesn’t stop the illegality.

The USDA allowed—indeed, enabled—Moulton to continue operating as animals illegally suffered and died. Now, Ridglan appears to be banking on the USDA doing the same for it.

We can’t let that happen. Rise for Animals has filed another formal complaint with the USDA, and we need your help to keep the pressure on. 

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