Federal rats, mice, fish will remain well-fed during shutdown

More than 700,000 federal workers will be looking for ways to put food on the table as much of the federal government shut down Tuesday over budget squabbles in Congress.

But if you're a federal rat, it's still fat city. Federal mice, too.

More than 1.3 million mice, 390,000 fish, 63,000 rats and 3,900 “nonhuman primates,” all wards of the government, will stay well fed, due to a special exemption in HHS' staffing contingency plan for the shutdown.

The massive menagerie will be maintained for use by 24 institutes and research centers across the country operated by the National Institutes of Health, which gave an exemption from the furloughs affecting so many other federal employees to 568 NIH staffers “needed for maintenance of animals and protection of property,” according to the 13-page plan.

“(M)any of these animals are priceless and have taken generations to breed,” the plan said.

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