Live Beagles Shipped to Japan for Experiments

A little while back, we received shipping documents indicating that 22 5-month-old beagles had been shipped from New York to Tokyo in the cargo holds of Japan Airlines planes. More disturbing still, we learned that the company shipping the beagles was none other than animal-experimentation conglomerate and notorious animal torturer, Covance Inc. In case you’re not aware of our history with Covance, this is the same company that was revealed to have been hideously abusing monkeys and other animals after an 11-month PETA undercover investigation in 2005.

The company—whose reaction to the 2005 investigation was to use its lawyers to try and strongarm PETA and PETA Europe into removing the footage from the Web—was eventually cited for numerous violations of the Animal Welfare Act. In a separate case, five Covance facilities were cited by the USDA for instances of animal abuse, including deliberately starving a dog and depriving her of veterinary care. These guys are the world’s largest breeders of dogs for experimentation, and you can bet that there were more horrors in store for the dogs made to suffer through the 28-hour-long trip in a Japan Airlines cargo hold. A Covance promotional pamphlet recently obtained by PETA shows dozens of beagles in rows of cages, with the tagline “Helping to bring miracles to market sooner.”

Thanks to Covance, it’s too late for these particular beagles, but we’re asking Japan Airlines to follow the lead of Air Canada and other compassionate airlines by refusing to transport dogs and other animals to vivisection laboratories in future. No responsible business should associate with monsters like Covance, and we’re working very hard to ensure that Japan Airlines gets that message. If you’d like to help out, you can write to the airline’s CEO through this form.