Your Montreal Gazette

Beagle shipments halted
Air Canada. Airline to stop transport of dogs for research in Europe
MAX HARROLD, The Gazette
Published: Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Air Canada has stopped shipments of beagles for medical research to Europe after protests from its passengers.

It turns out the airline's May 21 cargo of 70 to 100 beagles from Montreal to Paris was the last of shipments that had been taking place for a number of years.

That May 21 shipment led to complaints to The Gazette from passengers on the flight. The passengers said they heard the dogs yelping in the cargo hold during take-off and landing, and then saw them being unloaded in Paris.
Air Canada has decided to stop shipments of beagles to Europe for medical research after protests from its passengers.
Air Canada has decided to stop shipments of beagles to Europe for medical research after protests from its passengers.

They were told by flight attendants that the shipment of dogs from Montreal to Paris for medical and scientific experiments happens regularly, the passengers told The Gazette.

Air Canada spokesperson Isabelle Arthur confirmed yesterday that following the publication of the story on May 29, the airline received a formal complaint about the shipments.

"It's the first time we received formal complaints from passengers on any of those flights," Arthur said .

The Gazette has learned that Marshall BioResources, a company that breeds beagles for biomedical research in North Rose, N.Y. - between Syracuse and Rochester - was supplying the dogs.

A retired Air Canada employee who worked for years on the cargo tarmac said the dogs would arrive in clean, air-conditioned trucks.

The former employee said the dogs were then unloaded onto pallets, where they were weighed before boarding. "If it was too hot, we would turn them around and send them back down to the U.S.," the former worker said.

Arthur said Air Canada policy permits it to stop any shipment if the cargo disturbs passengers. As a result of the recent complaint, "We advised the shipper that we would no longer be accepting their cargo."

In an internal Air Canada memo obtained by The Gazette, the airline's director of corporate communications, Priscille Le-blanc, says the beagle shipments made the carrier "look insensitive and uncaring and I think we might have handled it better."

An employee at Marshall BioResources - which, according to its website, also breeds mongrel dogs, ferrets and "mini-pigs" - declined yesterday to comment on the shipments to Montreal.

"The Marshall Beagle is known worldwide as a premier canine model for safety assessment studies," their website says.

"Our proprietary socialization process yields a dog that is active and happy while in the cage, comes willingly to the front when approached, and is calm and pleasant when handled."

Beagles are flown to facilities in Europe and Asia to ensure genetic consistency, the company says.

Spokespeople for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were mystified about why Marshall's dogs go to Europe via Canada. "We don't regulate domestic animals leaving the U.S.," said a representative of the Fish and Wildlife Service. Only endangered and exotic animals are controlled, she said.

As for Marshall's Canadian pipeline, it has only been rerouted, said another source at Air Canada, speaking on condition of anonymity. Marshall has already found another air carrier departing from another Canadian city, possibly Toronto, the source said.

Alain Lajoie, a veterinarian with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, said Marshall has had a permit from the agency for several years to bring beagles through border points at Lacolle or Brockville, Ont., for transit to Montreal and then shipment to a third country. The permit can be reassigned to another port of exit in Canada within five working days, he said. Caring about the dogs' ultimate purpose "is not in our mandate," he said.

Animal-rights activists said Air Canada's decision was not a victory, since the dogs will still end up in labs, part of a legal trade that is beyond the reach of most animal-cruelty laws because it is for medical research.

But "because it's legal doesn't mean it's not wrong," said Michael O'Sullivan, executive director of the Humane Society of Canada.

mharrold@thegazette.canwest.com

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2007