Testing on dogs

[jellybrain]

Not sure if mumsnetters are aware of this petition. It would be good if people could sign and forward it too where possible.

Hi everyone

Please could you read this and if you feel strongly enough sign the petition.

Thanks


Sue


A planning application has been lodged by Bantin & Kingman (B&K) to build a replacement beagle farm in Yorkshire to breed and supply beagle dogs for vivisection. If permission is granted, many thousands of beagles will be imprisoned in kennels onsite to be sent on to laboratories. We originally had a link on our site to ask people to sign and many did and the Planning Committee of East Riding Council rejected the proposal.

B&K has appealed to the UK's Planning Inspectorate against its rejected application. Please help BUAV ensure that B&K's plans to build a breeding farm supplying beagles for research do not go ahead. If you think your signature will not make a difference please read below and then sign.

Research on dogs is highly controversial, for both ethical and scientific reasons. Great suffering and cruelty is intrinsic in the breeding and use of dogs in research. This is in addition to distress caused by the confined and unnatural conditions in which the dogs spend their whole lives. B&K's application states that the dogs will have no outdoor access - at no point in their short lives will they be able to experience fresh air or indulge natural behaviour like smelling grass. In 2010, 5,782 experiments were carried out on 3,727 dogs in the UK. Dogs in British laboratories are largely used in poisoning tests both for human and veterinary drugs, as well as for agricultural chemicals. Dogs can have substances dripped into their eyes, be fed agrochemicals, or force fed chemicals and drugs in capsules or via plastic tubes inserted through their mouths, directly into their stomach. Some experiments involve rubbing a test substance into exposed skin, as well as infusion studies where the dogs are strapped into a harness for hours at a time while substances are pumped directly into their bloodstream. Animals can suffer adverse effects that result in vomiting, diarrhoea, weight loss, lethargy and organ failure. Some dogs may become so ill that they either die or have to be euthanised on welfare grounds. Those who survive are killed at the end of the text and their bodies dissected.

CLICK THE LINK
www.thepetitionsite.com/1/save-be....3MWMEJ,1I8EG ,1
TO SIGN THE PETITION

[Scuttlebutter]

While I sympathise with the thinking behind the opposition, what will the petition do? Can the opposition to the development on moral/ethical grounds (ie that you think it cruel and unnecessary) be used as reasonable grounds for objections in the planning process? Generally with planning matters, you have to have a reasonable, planning based objection rather than an objection per se to the thing being built. So for instance you might oppose this development because you are concerned about noise issues rather than the simple fact of its existence.

Lack of outdoor access by itself has not prevented planning permission being given for extensive puppy farms in west Wales, for instance. Also you mention the farm will be used to breed puppies for experimentation, but presumably these dogs will not be experimented on at the farm, but will be sold on to laboratories? So experimental chemicals, test substances etc will not be likely present at the premises?

[lurcherlover]

The problem with this is it's not addressing the root cause - ie dogs being used in experiments. It's trying to stop a breeding facility, not an experimentation facility. If labs can't get dogs bred here, surely they will just get them from elsewhere? Which means breeding facilities not as high-welfare as British ones (and the British ones sound bad enough) plus the stress of a long journey?