‘Beagles’ Descend on the Home Office to Fight Licensing of Breeding Factory

For Immediate Release:

10 June 2016

Contact:

Dr Julia Baines 07731 878 330; [email protected]

Sascha Camilli +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 235; [email protected] 

‘BEAGLES’ DESCEND ON HOME OFFICE TO FIGHT LICENSING OF BREEDING FACTORY

PETA Delivers Open Letter With Nearly 50,000 Signatures to Home Secretary Theresa May Urging Her to Stop Plans to Breed Beagles for Experimentation

London – Today, a pack of “beagles” delivered an with nearly 50,000 supporting signatures to the Home Office urging Theresa May, Home Secretary, to refuse a licence for a beagle-breeding facility. B&K Universal, the American-owned company behind the proposed facility, had planning permission rejected twice by the local council in Grimston, near Hull. However, that decision was overturned by central government officials, meaning that the Home Secretary is the only person who can honour the will of the public and save these beagles by withholding a licence to breed animals.

Photos from the event are available here, here and here.

The mother dogs housed on this factory farm would spend their entire lives churning out puppies in a barren, windowless concrete prison until spent and exhausted. Their pups would be shipped off to laboratories, where they could be forced to inhale pesticides, fed toxic chemicals or deliberately induced with heart attacks – before being killed and dissected.

 Disgracefully, the Home Office have stated that the beagles – members of an active, playful and inquisitive breed – do not need to be provided with outdoor runs, and the High Court has declared that this exemption was made on lawful grounds, even though the law requires outdoor runs whenever possible.

In a separate, detailed letter sent to the Home Secretary, Dr Julia Baines, PETA’s science policy adviser, cites the distinct lack of scientific credibility for this exemption, stating, “If scientific results are not robust against minor variations in the housing and management of animals in laboratories, then the results, which already have questionable relevance to humans, are meaningless”.

It is now more urgent than ever that the Home Office consider all the evidence and refuse to license this beagle-breeding factory. By authorising a facility which blatantly disregards not only the mental and physical needs of dogs but also the recommended minimum legal standards for care and accommodation, the Home Office are at risk of setting an unconscionable precedent for issuing many more licences with questionable justification.

 “No dog should be condemned to a life devoid of the sights, smells and sounds of the outside world”, Dr Baines says. “The Home Secretary must do the right thing for dogs by refusing to license this unethical facility.”

PETA’s detailed letter to the Home Secretary is available upon request. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

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