Whatever the 207-mile trek to Marshall Farms achieves, it is different
ALBANY, New York––Animal advocacy marches have historically had a history of dismal failure, but “March to Abolish Animal Testing” co-leaders Gretchen Primack, 55, and Ella Magers, 46, are taking a distinctly different direction.
The organizers of 1990 “March for the Animals” in Washington D.C. advertised that it would attract 100,000 participants. Instead, it actually drew about 20,000 participants, while bankrupting many of the grassroots organizations that actively backed it.
A 1996 sequel “March for the Animals,” also in Washington D.C., attracted fewer than 3,000 participants. Much of the funding donated to organize that march was never accounted for by directors who subsequently disappeared from view within the animal cause.
Instead of trying to concentrate impressively large numbers of participants in one place and time, Primack and Magers have organized a march meant to cover an impressive distance, encouraging fellow animal advocates to join them for hours or days.
207-mile route to almost nowhere
Primack and Magers intend for the “March to Abolish Animal Testing” to traverse a 207-mile route from West Capitol Park in Albany, in front of the New York state capitol building, to the Marshall BioResources headquarters in North Rose, New York, in segments of about 15 miles a day, during the two weeks from September 12 to September 26, 2026.
North Rose, in Wayne County, population 571, just south of Lake Ontario along New York State Route 104, is very nearly the ass end of nowhere.
The nearest city of significant size is Rochester, 45 miles west.
But the Marshall BioResources facilities, according to federal Animal Welfare Act enforcement records, house nearly 16,000 beagles, 2,058 cats and kittens, 13,959 ferrets, and 2,108 pigs, all doomed to short, often painful lives and frequently gruesome deaths in service of biomedical research.
Marshall BioResources is the last major beagle breeder for laboratories
Following the closure of Envigo RMS in Cumberland, Virginia in 2022, and Ridglan Farms in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin earlier in 2026, Marshall BioResources is the last major breeder of beagles for laboratory use in the United States.
(See Lab beagle breeder Envigo cops $35 million plea. Shareholder suits ahead and Under-the-table backroom deal frees the last of the Ridglan Farms beagles.)
The chances of assembling hundreds of people, or even dozens, to “protest on public property near the gates of Marshall’s facility,” as Primack promised would be the concluding event of the “March to Abolish Animal Testing,” would at a glance appear slim.
Wild cards
But the “March to Abolish Animal Testing” has a pair of wild cards going for it, not counting Gretchen Primack and Ella Magers themselves.
Primack, of Woodstock, New York, is a former teacher in the New York state prison system, previously of Silver Spring, Maryland.
Magers, a Miami Beach fitness coach and a 28-year vegan, previously lived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
All four of their past communities have been hubs of animal rights activism for nearly 50 years.
The “March to Abolish Animal Testing” wild cards that could prove to be aces-in-the-hole, however, are season and geography.
(Beth Clifton collage)
The Empire State Trail
Much of the “March to Abolish Animal Testing” route follows the Empire State Trail, running along the tow paths of the original Erie Canal.
Opened in 2017, 200 years after digging the Erie Canal began, the 750-mile Empire State Trail is considered one of the most scenic and historic walking, hiking, bicycling, and jogging routes in the entire United States, annually enjoyed by about 9.75 million people.
The portions included in the “March to Abolish Animal Testing” route typically attract as many as 400,000 users during the September part of the annual fall leaf season, when the red oaks, maples, aspen, and birch trees along the Empire State Trail burst into flaming colors, before shedding their leaves with the onset of winter.
Barring cold rain, people will be on the Empire State Trail, whether or not joining the “March to Abolish Animal Testing,” many of whom may become “fellow travelers,” even if not normally inclined to participate in protests.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“From the Salt March to Selma”
“Echoing marches through history, from the Salt March to Selma, whose toll and toil inspired people across the world,” Primack and Magers posted to the “March to Abolish Animal Testing” web site, “our aim is to have 1,000 people join us as we push for the dogs to be freed.”
That probably will not happen in North Rose, but could easily happen cumulatively.
The comparisons to the 1930 Salt March led by Mohandas Gandhi and the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in support of passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965, must be considered aspirational rather than predictive.
The Salt March, a 24-day, 240-mile demonstration of non-violent resistance to the British salt monopoly and tax in India, began with 78 volunteers trained in non-violence, but culminated in 60,000 arrests, becoming a milestone toward achieving Indian independence 17 years later.
The four-day, 54-mile march from Selma to Montgomery, led by Martin Luther King Jr., joined by 25,000 people, helped to push the Civil Rights Act of 1965 into law even before it finished.
“Monks are an excellent exemplar”
Primack and Magers also mentioned the relatively obscure Monks’ Walk for Peace, began on October 26, 2025 at the Hương Đạo Vipassana Bhavana Center in Fort Worth, Texas, concluded on February 13, 2026, in Washington, D.C. with final events at the Lincoln Memorial and Washington National Cathedral. Fewer than two dozen people and a dog named Aloka completed that 2,300-mile trek across nine states.
That “was a much longer trek, but its goals were, while deeply valuable, abstract,” Primack and Magers acknowledged.
“But the monks are an excellent exemplar because it showed us the benefits of a multi-day action,” Primack and Magers. “Awareness can bloom and bloom over the course of it, along with growing local and national and international media, community discussion, and responses along the way from marchers and witnesses to the march. People who might never have considered an issue are given the opportunity to engage with it.”
Goals
Goals of the “March to Abolish Animal Testing,” according to Primack and Magers, are to “End federal funding for animal experimentation. Advocate for reduced taxpayer funding of animal experiments and major investment in modern, human-relevant methods.
“Ban the use of dogs in experimentation.
“Increase transparency and accountability. Push for disclosure, independent oversight, whistleblower protections, and stricter enforcement” of animal use in biomedical research.
And, finally, to “Shut down major breeding facilities, such as Marshall BioResources.”
Finished Primack and Magers on the “March to Abolish Animal Testing” website, “We understand that 200 miles is a tremendous commitment; that is the point. It is an act of solidarity with animals who have endured far more.
“Everyone can slot in how they wish”
“The beauty of this action is that everyone can slot in exactly how they wish to. There will be people who just come to the Albany or Marshall action, or both. There will be people who walk for one or four days. There will be people who go the whole route, but just walk the first four miles of each day. And there will be people who wake up each day and walk 15 miles, day after day.”
The “March to Abolish Animal Testing” began with 66 institutional endorsements from animal advocacy groups, including from the British organization Save the Dogs.
Save the Dogs, Primack and Magers said, “coordinated a London march in concert with the Albany kickoff, followed by a later march to MBR Acres, a Marshall BioResources facility in the United Kingdom, with a final day peaceful rally planned to occur alongside the U.S. finale.”
Endorsed by the two Waynes
“March to Abolish Animal Testing” endorsements also came from the two Waynes, Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy, and Wayne Hsiung, founder of Direct Action Everywhere, now blogging as The Simple Heart.
Speaking in Albany at the start of the “March to Abolish Animal Testing,” Pacelle afterward posted to the members of both of his organizations, “At defining moments in our history, when conscience demanded a fresh look at convention, Americans marched.
“Demanded that we do better”
“Whether it was for abolition, or civil rights, or for some other cause demanding redress of unfairness or injustice, people gathered in the community square, collectively raised their voices and protest signs, and demanded that we do better as a nation.
“In the wake of freeing the dogs at Ridglan Farms,” Pacelle wrote, that fresh look at convention “inevitably leads us to the front stoop of Marshall BioResources, the undisputed giant in breeding beagles and other animals for lab use.”
The Erie Canal, Pacelle recalled, was “a ditch every reasonable person of its day called impossible to construct. But it was dug by ordinary hands and is a marvel of human labor and ingenuity,” opened in 1825 after eight years of construction.
“It is not hard to imagine a day,” Pacelle suggested, when after centuries of effort that began around the same time, “we replace dogs, cats, and other animals with 21st-century scientific methods.”
“Disturbing new evidence”
Wayne Hsiung blogged on August 31, 2026 that, “Today, we submitted disturbing new evidence to New York authorities regarding the abuse of dogs at Marshall BioResources.
“The evidence, which is based on inspection records, photographic evidence, and new whistleblower accounts,” Hsiung said, “is summarized in a criminal referral letter drafted by a former federal prosecutor, Bonnie Klapper, who spent a career pursuing violent drug cartels and knows a criminal enterprise when she sees one.
“Klapper’s referral,” alleged Hsiung, “shows that dogs are killed at Marshall in ways that are so ‘depraved or sadistic’ that they constitute felony abuse.
“Klapper asks Wayne County district attorney Christine Callanan to immediately ‘open a criminal investigation” and ‘seize and protect animals’ who face imminent torture or death,” Hsiung summarized.
Explained Hsiung, who is himself an attorney, “New York law makes it a crime when anyone ‘engages in… any act of cruelty.’ That elevates to a felony when a dog is killed in a fashion that is ‘depraved or sadistic.’ Marshall, in other words, is a criminal enterprise,” Hsiung charged.
“There are clear provisions under state and federal law that give the government the immediate authority—indeed, the duty—to save the dogs,” said Hsiung.
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