Texas A&M University Regent to Face Protest Over Dog Experiments
PETA Supporters Will Gather at Tim Leach’s Concho Resources Inc. to Call for Lab Closure and Release of Golden Retrievers
For Immediate Release:
September 9, 2020
Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382
On Thursday, a giant costumed “golden retriever” will lead PETA supporters wearing golden retriever face masks in a spirited, socially distanced protest outside the office of Concho Resources Inc. CEO Tim Leach—who is Texas A&M University’s (TAMU) Board of Regents vice chair—to call for the end of the school’s canine muscular dystrophy (MD) experiments on dogs. The protesters will also screen audio footage of dogs barking and crying in TAMU’s laboratory.
When: Thursday, September 10, 12 noon
Where: Concho Resources Inc., 1001 Fannin St. (at the intersection with Lamar Street), Houston
Video footage released by PETA in late 2016 shows golden retrievers and other dogs at TAMU who were deliberately bred to develop a crippling and painful form of canine MD struggling to walk, swallow, and even breathe. Under pressure from PETA supporters, 500 physicians, and people with MD, TAMU stopped breeding dogs to develop the disease. The lead experimenter has retired, and many of the nearly 100 dogs were adopted into homes. But the laboratory still keeps 29 dogs—at least 15 of whom are healthy—imprisoned there.
“Texas A&M has no use for these dogs and is apparently refusing to let them go out of spite,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “Regent Leach needs to be a leader and shut down this despicable laboratory now.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.
