Feds Cite U of Toledo After Overgrown Teeth, Escapes Kill Voles: PETA Statement

For Immediate Release:
January 13, 2026

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna regarding the University of Toledo’s failure to comply with federal animal welfare regulations, netting three citations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture—two critical—for separate incidents which resulted in the deaths of four prairie voles, three of them babies, and the near-starvation of four others:

The University of Toledo’s shoddy operations and carelessness have racked up an animal body count beyond what would normally result from experiments, and it must not continue. A prairie vole’s overgrown teeth became entangled with a cage and trapped the vole for up to seven hours. The vole was killed after suffering a grand mal seizure following tooth-reduction surgery. Staff also put eight voles in an improper cage, allowing three babies to escape. Staff found two dead on the floor, and a third was euthanized. Finally, staff allowed three voles to starve for days on end, with one dropping to 78 percent of normal body weight—far below the threshold where they should have been either fed or euthanized. PETA calls on the University of Toledo to get its house in order and shift resources toward state-of-the-art, non-animal research methods that spare animals and produce reliable science.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.