Air Canada obliged to accept lab monkeys as cargo

[DoppolyKonson]

TO THE ANIMAl activists: Next time you are sick in bed dying will make sure the doctor won't give you a vaccine. Would not want to insult you :neutral:.

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/927429--monkeys-on-a-plane-raise-eyebrows-at-pearson
The arrival of 48 monkeys on a flight from China this weekend has brought Air Canada under fire for shipping primates destined for research laboratories, but the airline says it is obliged by federal law to accept monkeys as cargo. A Pearson International Airport employee tipped off the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection that a shipment of monkeys destined for Montreal was being held at the Toronto airport after arriving from China on Saturday.

Sarah Kite, director of communications and special projects for the BUAV, said monkeys destined for research facilities are usually transported in cramped wooden crates in the plane’s cargo hold, where they can be subject to fluctuations in temperature, stopovers and in some cases long delays.

“I think most people would be alarmed to know that monkeys could be travelling alongside their luggage in a cargo hold,” Kite said. She said these monkeys, typically macaques, are often factory farmed for research purposes in countries such as Laos and Mauritius.

Air Canada is one of a small number of airlines that continues to transport these primates, Kite said. Under pressure from animal rights groups and the public, many airlines have banned the practice. British Airways, for example, has a policy of “not carrying live animals that are for use in any laboratory, or for experimentation or exploitation,” according to media liaison manager Sophie Greenyer.

According to the Pearson tipster, this weekend’s shipment was destined for Montreal, but it is unclear whether the monkeys travelled by truck from Toronto or were held overnight for a connecting flight.
At LAB Research, a facility in Laval, Que. that tests drugs for diabetes and cardiovascular disease on rodents and other animals, a veterinarian who did not want his name used out of fear of retaliation by animal activists said monkeys are usually shipped by truck from the Toronto airport to avoid long layovers.

 

[Coffee Junkie]

Good one :great:.

 

[Dayrena]

Animal rights, also referred to as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings.[3] Advocates approach the issue from different philosophical positions, but agree that animals should be viewed as non-human persons and members of the moral community, and should not be used as food, clothing, research subjects, or entertainment.[2] They argue that human beings should stop seeing other sentient beings as property—not even as property to be treated kindly.[4]

The idea of awarding rights to animals has the support of legal scholars such as Alan Dershowitz and Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School,[5] while Toronto lawyer Clayton Ruby argued in 2008 that the movement had reached the stage the gay rights movement was at 25 years earlier.[6] Animal law is taught in 119 out of 180 law schools in the United States, in eight law schools in Canada, and is routinely covered in universities in philosophy or applied ethics courses.[7]

Critics argue that animals are unable to enter into a social contract or make moral choices, and for that reason cannot be regarded as possessors of rights, a position summed up by the philosopher Roger Scruton, who writes that only humans have duties and therefore only humans have rights.[8] A parallel argument is that there is nothing inherently wrong with using animals as resources so long there is no unnecessary suffering, a view known as the animal welfare position.[9] There has also been criticism, including from within the animal rights movement itself, of certain forms of animal rights activism, in particular the destruction of fur farms and animal laboratories by the Animal Liberation Front.

 

[in_lovebaby13]

I just don't see lab monkeys staying seated in coach for the entire flight. Make more sense to ship the the same as you would a dog or a cat.


Sure you could have sent them on a passenger ship but can you picture how the buffet would look after they ate.

 

[MonicaB]

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