LAB ANIMAL UPDATES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:

The American Humane Association on September
16 took custody of 40 beagles who were scheduled for use in
osteoporsosis research at Huntingdon Life Sciences Inc. in
Franklin, New Jersey, but became surplus instead when the
firm that hired the study, Yamanouchi Inc. of Japan, cancelled
it in response to a May public appeal by actress Kim
Basinger. Basinger tried to collect the beagles in person in
July, but Huntingdon would only release them to an accredited
sheltering organization. AHA arranged for them to be
accepted for socialization and eventual adoption through nine
local shelters.
Responding to a Humane Society of New York
petition asking that the USDA require research facilities to
scan incoming dogs and cats for identification microchips,
USDA assistant secretary for marketing and regulatory programs
Michael Dunn announced in August that Animal and
Plant Health Inspection Service officials “are launching a
pilot program to use microchip scanners in inspections to
determine their effectiveness, accuracy, and the frequency of
the use of microchips in cats and dogs.”

The University of New Mexico is building the
world’s largest experimental rodent reservation, dubbed the
Very Large Mouse Array after the nearby Very Large Array
radio telescope, at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge.
The purpose of the high-security site is to study hantavirus.
According to an e-mail alert distributed on
August 27 by the Israeli Cetacea Freedom Group, the
Kibbutz Or-Haner has won permission from the I s r a e l i
Nature Reserve Authority to start raising monkeys for laboratory
use. “The American firm World Wide Primates has
established contact with the kibbutz and offered to supply
young monkeys, to be raised in Israel and later distributed to
labs in other counties.” World Wide Primates, of Miami, is
headed by Matthew Block, who through the investigative
efforts of the International Primate Protection League was
eventually convicted of arranging the 1990 Bangkok Six
infant orangutan smuggling case. “The first Israeli [monkey] farm was established a few years ago in Moshav
Mazor,” the alert concluded.
British laboratories used 1.94 million animals in
two million procedures during 1996, the Home Office
reported in late August––a slight rise from 1995.
Pharmaceutical research and development accounted for 25%
of the total.