Death of research hummingbird at UC Riverside triggers third animal welfare citation in 3 years

The death of a hummingbird used in research has landed UC Riverside in hot water with the federal government for a third time in three years over evidence of animal welfare abuses.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which enforces the Animal Welfare Act, cited the university in March for the Jan. 15 death of the hummingbird - one of six that had been captured in the wild two days earlier.

Another hummingbird death resulted in a citation from the USDA in August 2025, as did the deaths of nine voles used in research that provoked a citation in August 2023.

The citations included two incidents in which researchers or lab workers failed to report animal deaths or life-threatening conditions to the university's attending veterinarian. All three of the infractions resulted in so-called critical citations, which the USDA defines as having had "a serious or severe adverse effect on the health and well-being of the animal."

During this same time frame, less than a dozen other research facilities around the country have received the same number of critical citations for incidents involving animal deaths, according to Eric Kleiman, a senior policy adviser to the American Anti-Vivisection Society.

In the past, UC Riverside may have received a fine for these infractions, Kleiman said, but, thus far, the university has only received warning letters, likely because of a 2024 Supreme Court decision that limited the ability of government agencies to issue fines. Kleiman submitted complaints to the National Science Foundation, which has provided funding for UC Riverside animal research, and the NIH's Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare over the university's lab animal deaths.

A UC Riverside official stressed the importance of animal research and said the university is pledged to do better.

“Animal study is an integral part of university research, including for medical advancements, and UCR takes seriously the welfare of the animals involved in the studies and its related reporting obligations,” said John Warren, interim associate vice chancellor of university relations, in a statement. Since the violations, he said, “UCR initiated a robust administrative, clinical, and medical record process to ensure its reporting fully meets USDA expectations.”

Akiko Sanders, the campus veterinarian, directed a request for comment to Warren. UC Riverside's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee also forwarded a request for comment to Warren.

According to a USDA report on the latest death, laboratory personnel found a male Anna's hummingbird in “respiratory distress" but didn't contact the attending veterinarian. Instead, they informed the principal investigator, who reached the bird shortly before it died. The attending veterinarian wasn't informed until about 20 minutes after the animal's death, the USDA report noted.

Observation and feeding records from the hummingbird's time in captivity are sparse, according to the USDA inspection report. No observation data was recorded on the first day of the animal's captivity, and, on the last day of its life, the bird's recorded food consumption was inconsistent - a log says the hummingbird ate 25 milliliters of food, but the amount reported to the attending veterinarian was only 5 milliliters.

During a March inspection, the USDA cited UC Riverside for inadequate veterinary care. "An effective method of direct and frequent communication with the AV (attending veterinarian) must be established for timely diagnosis and adequate veterinary intervention," the USDA's report noted.

Previously, the USDA cited UC Riverside after the 2024 death of another hummingbird. The bird, named Ash, got his bill stuck in his monitoring harness and died. In the weeks before his death, Ash had gotten entangled in the monitoring harness, as had another hummingbird, according to the inspection record. The death was reported to the campus veterinarian and the lab stopped using that monitoring harness in its research.

UC Riverside's hummingbird research has focused on courtship, locomotion, evolution of behavior and acoustics, including the sounds they make when flying and during courtship displays. One of the researchers described his studies as "curiosity-based." Other research looked at sex chromosome evolution in voles.

Previous animal deaths

The most recent hummingbird death wasn't the first time researchers at UC Riverside failed to promptly contact their veterinarian when animals were sick.

In the summer of 2022, nine voles died between late July and early September. Researchers didn't notify the veterinarian until the ninth animal had died, USDA records show. A necropsy revealed that the last vole to die had a bacterial lung infection.

The USDA inspector, in her August 2023 report, said the lack of direct and timely communication between the principal investigator and the attending veterinarian "prevented the AV from intervening and evaluating the animals at an earlier time point to minimize the number of vole deaths." The inspector issued a critical citation for veterinary care.

Soon after, the remaining two voles were euthanized "as their health was declining," according to emails obtained by the nonprofit Rise for Animals.

These emails show that, at the time, the university's attending veterinarian was concerned by the lack of reporting.

"Voles are a USDA covered species," wrote the veterinarian, whose name is redacted. "Now that I have lost the opportunity to investigate the cause of deaths, I am concerned that our institution may be in violation of the Animal Welfare Act."

The principal investigator for the vole research informed the attending veterinarian that she was "unaware" of the requirement to report dead animals, according to those records.

Kleiman says he was "shocked" to see that admission.

"My jaw dropped," he said. "I don't remember ever seeing anything like that, in over 30 years" of animal advocacy.

These failures to report sick or dead animals to the campus veterinarian indicate "a significant, and repeated, problem at UC Riverside, which I believe goes to the heart of providing adequate veterinary care to animals at this institution," Kleiman said.

The research animal watchdog group SAEN, or Stop Animal Exploitation Now, called UC Riverside's treatment of the hummingbird that died in January "negligent" and filed an official complaint with the USDA against the university. "I must insist that you take the most severe action allowable under the Animal Welfare Act," wrote Stacey Ellison, a SAEN research analyst, in her complaint.

In the past few years, only a handful of research facilities have been cited for similar alleged violations.

In October 2023, UC Davis received a critical citation for not reporting a macaque's significant weight loss over about three months to veterinarians in a timely manner. The animal was later euthanized.

Oregon Health and Science University was cited in March 2025 after researchers failed to contact a veterinarian about a sick 4-year-old Japanese macaque. The animal was observed to be lying down multiple times, and, the following day, she was found dead in her enclosure with swollen arms. A necropsy determined she had succumbed to sepsis from a bacterial skin infection.

In June 2025, USDA inspectors noted that piglets died at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, but various symptoms - including decreased appetite, diarrhea, weakness, and anorexia - were not reported to the vet until after the deaths. The necropsies indicated the animals were also "hot to the touch," the USDA report noted.

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This story was originally published May 24, 2026 at 7:28 AM.