The US government is conducting a taxpayer-funded experiment where it feeds dozens of kittens infected meat, monitors them, and then kills them and burns their bodies, even though most of the cats are perfectly healthy, according to a watchdog group.

The anti–animal research group White Coat Waste Project says it obtained information about the tests being conducted on the kittens through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The experiments being conducted at a US Department of Agriculture (USDA) laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, kills 100 kittens a year, according to the nonprofit. The USDA called this number a "serious overestimation" in a statement.

The group informed Michigan Rep. Mike Bishop, a Republican defender of animal rights, who on Monday sent a letter to Agricultural Secretary Sonny Purdue to ask what was going on in the lab.

In his letter, Bishop said he was shocked to find out that the government is treating "the life of animals with such contempt."

“I’m shocked and disturbed that for decades the USDA — the very organization charged with enforcing animal welfare laws — has been unnecessarily killing hundreds of kittens in expensive and inefficient lab experiments," Bishop said in a statement.

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the USDA said the Research Service "makes every effort" to minimize the number of cats used to produce eggs required to research "one of the most widespread parasites in the world."

"The cats are essential to the success of this critical research: only cats are found to excrete the environmentally resistant stage of the parasite," the spokesperson added.