Research beagles being air-freighted by Lufthansa before the carrier changed its policy.
Image: PETA
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By Meredith Wadman of Nature magazine
For researchers who rely on lab animals shipped from distant sources, and for the companies that breed them, the options are narrowing again. This week, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) will announce that it has obtained written assurances from the world’s two largest air-cargo carriers, FedEx and UPS, that they will not transport mammals for laboratory use. UPS says that it is also planning to further “restrict” an exemption that allows the transport of amphibians, fish, insects and other non-mammals.
Neither company currently ships large numbers of lab animals. But PETA, an activist group based in Norfolk, Virginia, sought the carriers’ written assurances as a way to foreclose alternatives for lab-animal breeders and their customers, who are increasingly being confronted with bans on transport by passenger airlines. “FedEx and UPS were not transporting many or any animals, but we felt it was crucial to go to them and discuss this as we knew that facilities trying to send non-human primates and other species would be going to them soon, as more and more passenger airlines refused to do business with them,” says Kathy Guillermo, PETA’s senior vice-president for laboratory investigations.
The commitments will have a direct impact on some researchers. “I am deeply concerned,” says Darcy Kelley, a neurobiologist at Columbia University in New York City, who studies neural and muscular systems involved in vocal communication in the frog Xenopus. The supply companies that Kelley uses — Nasco in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin; Xenopus One in Dexter, Michigan; and Xenopus Express of Brooksville, Florida — all ship the amphibians by air with UPS for next-day delivery. Losing access to the frogs because of shipping hurdles “would set my research back years”, says Kelley. “It takes Xenopus females two years to get to sexual maturity. And maintaining an animal colony is a very expensive proposition.” For those who study mammals, the FedEx and UPS policies may have little immediate impact. The two companies are not used to ship non-human primates internationally, says Michael Hsu, president of Shared Enterprises in Richlandtown, Pennsylvania, which maintains a macaque-breeding colony in Shanghai and imports research animals to the United States by air. In the United States, many other lab animals are domestically bred and shipped by truck. But although the FedEx and UPS declarations may be largely symbolic, they suggest that research advocates are failing to make the case for the use of lab animals, and they mark another success for groups such as PETA.
Many large passenger carriers will no longer transport non-human primates after being confronted by PETA and other animal activist groups (see Nature 483, 381–382; 2012). United Airlines and Air France are among the few that have not ruled out primate transport. Air Canada is petitioning the Canadian Transportation Agency for permission to stop the practice. Now, PETA is extending its campaign to other species and to cargo carriers. Non-air transport across international borders is also under pressure. In March, the last two ferry companies transporting laboratory rodents into the United Kingdom said that they were stopping the practice.
FedEx, based in Memphis, Tennessee, says that its commitment not to ship animals reflects a policy that is at least five years old. “There was an active decision made that, especially here in the United States, that’s just not how we wanted to do business,” says Shea Leordeanu, manager of global public relations for the company. FedEx, the leading global cargo shipper, does occasionally transport animals — for example, it delivered horses to the equestrian events at the London Olympics — but only with special dispensation. Under such exemptions in recent years, as many as several dozen international shipments of research mice have traveled by FedEx annually, Leordeanu says. “However, FedEx has not transported any mice at all in many months,” she adds, because customers have not requested its services.
UPS, based in Atlanta, Georgia, has limited animal shipments for more than a decade. With rare exceptions, it ships only amphibians, crustaceans, fish, insects, mollusks and certain lizards and turtles. “We currently are in the process of putting procedures in place to restrict those shipments as well,” says Norman Black, director of global media services for UPS, but “the fact that we’re considering restrictions doesn’t mean a flat ban”. The company’s policy, he says, is “based both on our sustainability principles and on our marketing decisions. We do not consider animal shipments to be a target market for us, either economically or operationally.”
Losing the option of shipping frogs by UPS would be “huge” for his company, says Burley Lilley, president of Xenopus Express, which serves around 100 academic customers throughout the United States. “Part of the reason our business is so good and the animals get there alive is because we use UPS.”
Charles Hewett, executive vice-president and chief operating officer at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, says that less than 10% of the several million specialized mice that Jackson ships from its US locations each year travel by air; most are shipped domestically by 18-wheel truck. The laboratory also breeds highly requested strains of mice at facilities overseas, so that they can be delivered quickly by truck.
“We do not use FedEx, we do not use UPS and in fact we believe very strongly that our mice should only be handled by truckers who have been trained to understand the animals’ requirements,” says Hewett.
Nonetheless, Hewett says he finds it “troubling that the corporate leaderships of UPS, FedEx and others yield to the pressure of a small minority who overlook the importance of what we do for preventing, curing and treating human disease.”
For many of its international shipments, Jackson uses a contractor, Charles River Laboratories in Wilmington, Massachusetts, which did not respond to requests for comment. The PETA campaign has had an impact on Charles River in at least one instance. In 2010, less than 24 hours after PETA published a photo of beagles in the cargo hold of a Lufthansa airliner at New York’s JFK airport, the German airline said that it would no longer ship dogs and cats for research. The dogs were in transit from research-animal breeder Marshall BioResources in North Rose, New York, to a Charles River Laboratories facility in Scotland.
PETA says that it is systematically approaching every major cargo carrier in the world, putting pressure on both international and domestic shipments. In India, for example, the government’s National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), in Hyderabad, relies on Air India to ship specialized mouse strains to researchers and companies throughout the country. “From Hyderabad to Delhi by train would take more than 30 hours” and require an attendant, says Madan Chaturvedi, dean of life-sciences research at the University of Delhi. Without Air India transporting the animals, research at his institution “would definitely suffer”, he says.
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14 Comments
Add CommentWell, I guess it's time to form PETH (People for the Ethical Treatment of Humans).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo they have any problem shipping endangered species or exotic invasive species? You have to jump through hoops to get species for scientific investigation. Yet another reason science is packing up and leaving america.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHave people forgotten that the SPCA was originally established for the protection of children, who were not considered completely human yet. Since they were not considered worthy of human rights, they were protected as animals. While animals still protect our health, the organization, no longer cares about Man's well being. GK
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisArticle should be titled "FedEx and UPS Commit to Hinder Research that saves lives of Humans."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI never hear about PETA doing anything about saving domesticated animals.If they dealt with that issue by spending some of their money on sterilization and housing homeless pets, they would be too bust to worry about the rest of the animal kingdom that has survived just fine before the PETA invasion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople who are using sentient beings for research are the lowest of the low. There ARE other ways to test. If humans want to test a new procedure then get a human volunteer who knows why and what will be done to him. Just because we can does not mean we should be cruel to our distant kin on this earth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismaravill, define cruel, please.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI see we have a rat lover. Well, Maravill I hope they love you back if you are ever unlucky enough to be dying of an affliction that may have been curable with research using rats or other disease carrying vermin. I'm sure if they were using humans for research, you would be the first to volunteer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShipping livestock requires some FDA and Department of Agriculture permits and it is handled by specialized shippers (so are motorcyles, boats, or anything that needs extra equipment). This sounds like a "feel good" stunt, like "Glutton Free Kosher Salt" ..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with jcelko, neither carrier is a major hauler of live animals for any purposes. They do allow them in specialized circumstances but there are much better ways to ship them using specialized carriers. Of course that doesn't keep people from lobbing stones as if they have stopped all live animal research.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisG. Karst, yes of course they were. I also hear that before the SPCA children were considered as food by the liberals of the day. They real goal of the SPCA was to direct people away from this horrid act in order to save them from being eaten and set up guidelines where they could be used for invasive scientific experiments. I also hear that PETA is setting up late term abortion clinics so that they can get fetuses with beating hearts for the purposes of growing them for drug trials and experimental surgeries.
PETA does have neutering and spaying campaigns. In reality I have major issues with the way PETA carries out its business. Their goal isn't to prevent animal extinctions but to promote the ethical treatment of animals. Who campaigns for the "unethical" treatment of animals? However, they cross the line into absurdity too many times, such as threatening to put a lake full of fish to sleep before a fishing tournament and having an advertising campaign in college campuses urging kids to drink beer instead of milk because milk is so horribly bad for you bonging 4 beers at a time isn't nearly so bad. Such tactics have only fueled people who think its perfectly fine to cause pain and suffering, such as applying chemicals directly to the eyes of rabbits, as long as there may be some benefit to humans.
On another note, when they have affirmed that they will not ship "non-human primates" does this imply that they are going to be getting into the business of shipping "human primates"??
maravil - On a regular basis there are attempts to find treatments for head injuries. I expect you to volunteer to have a massive head injury so a simian will be spared. Please post your name and address so the researchers can find you and accept your glad offer to participate as a test subject.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow do the species traitors at peta feel about research animals used for researching cures for veterinary illnesses?
On a positive note, Russia and China sneer at idiots like this and will continue to do animal research. I'm not sure if I like the idea of those two countries dominating science research as the USA and Western Europe slide into stagnation. I guess that those that adapt to reality will survive and those that don't will fail and die out.
Interesting how people conflate the ethical treatment of animals with the unethical treatment of humans. What exactly is a species traitor anyway? I agree with Ungy in that PETA has some noble goals but stray far too often into the realm of absurdity that often hurts their stated cause. I will never be a strict vegan and will continue to eat meat. That doesn't mean, however, that I don't care how livestock and other food animals are treated. The process of making Foi Gras is very often cruel and unneccessary and I have no problem with it being banned in many places. However, their stance that there should be no fishing or milk production at all is sheer nonsense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this...continued from 1. (ONE)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2. (TWO)
Secondly, mostly about Dogs...
The Wolf came to us to make a deal, aware or not, the Wolf still came to make a deal...
The Wolf showed us (they can't speak), "You (humankind) give me food, I (Wolf) will warn you of danger and sometimes, even help protect you".
The Wolf, showing ever further dedication to us, became our hunting partners and even herds our animals, by becoming... Dog.
Not only has the Wolf fully honored the agreement, they have now become even more subservient to humankind.
If the Dog wasn't around, could humankind have developed so quickly? Without the Dog to help protect us (and our food sources, both animal and plant) against the massive amount of predators and other dangers, humankind could never have become this advanced, this quickly. We might not even have made it, if it wasn't for the vigilance and unconditional loyalty of the Dog.
How do we repay them? Casting them into the street when they misbehave or get too old, eating them (many-many-many cultures eat Dog), using their skin to make fashion clothing (yes, some cultures use Dogs to make Dog skin "leather" items), even dissecting their brains after we poison them?
Sometimes, we'll see a movie or read a story about how great the human spirit is. Really? We can't even keep a simple deal with another life form.
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Regardless of your spiritual conviction or scientific position on higher intelligences, one way or another, we are not alone and we are not the last word in the universe or even just this one galaxy. One day, we, very well could be "interpreted", possibly even "judged". We "judge" our criminals for crimes not committed against ourselves, but against others. What if we are "judged" for crimes not committed against our "judges", but against others, just like we do every single day.
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If most of you can think about some little tortured puppy, painfully whimpering in a tiny cage somewhere, waiting to be slaughtered... and still sleep peacefully, then our fate is probably sealed anyway.
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(Note to the most esteemed publishers of this great periodical publication, this article may be reproduced, but not edited, other than for grammar, punctuation and removing the reference hyperlinks)
Dr. H. Kanamit
Hmmmm... Two things...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. (ONE)
First, we are not the only intelligent life. In fact, we are definitely not the most intelligent life either:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_habitability
The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. The oldest stars in our galaxy (Milky Way) are about 13.4 billion years old. NASA has already found two planets that have estimated age of 13 billion years.
Even if a civilization is "only" a few million years, in advance of us, no one can even imagine the technology "they" have. Not to mention that "they" have probably found ways to enhance / evolve their own genetics (making themselves smarter, extending their life spans. etc).
...now...
We have already sent out very powerful signals, telling any civilization that there is intelligence here. There's a "bubble" about 50 light years in diameter (and growing very, very fast), consisting of television and radio signals emanating from Earth. Any intelligence that passes through that "bubble", will know that we are here. It will happen. Could be tomorrow, could be a billion years from now, could be anytime in-between... could be next year... That "bubble" is growing literally at the speed of light, every second, it's diameter gets about 186,000 miles bigger. The chances of another form of intelligence detecting that "bubble" is increasing... in the most exponential shape (sphere) and at the fastest possible speed in the three dimensions of known non-quantum, non-hyperspace space/time.
In other words, we will be found.
When a vastly more intelligent life form encounters us, how are they going gauge their interactions?
Keep in mind, they aren't going to think like us, all they are going to be, is vastly more intelligent.
Humankind's dominance over other life is painfully obvious, to any outside observer. "They" will keenly see that we are the most intelligent life form here.
Based on our own behavior, what are the acceptable terms, of how to treat lower life forms?
What are our own "rules of engagement"?
I can just hope that I'm not around to see how that's interpreted.
It's real, it will happen. Humankind has never sent out signals before. We are now and "they" will come someday. We just don't know when.
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(Note to the most esteemed publishers of this great periodical publication, this article may be reproduced, but not edited, other than for grammar, punctuation and removing the reference hyperlinks)
Dr. H. Kanamit