VIDEO: PETA Exposes Further Envigo Horrors After Hundreds of Dogs Were Sent to European Labs

For Immediate Release:
August 11, 2023

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Documents and video obtained by PETA and from the European organizations TheCampBeagle.com and Anima Denmark have revealed that 335 dogs from the now-shuttered Envigo dog-breeding facility were sent to Europe to be used in experimentation.

Envigo sent the dogs in 11 shipments between April 2021 and May 2022, according to documents that PETA obtained. Envigo shipped 96 of those dogs to its U.K. facility, possibly fearing that its Cumberland facility would close after it was cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for dozens of serious violations of animal welfare regulations and amid mounting pressure from Virginia legislators. According to the documents, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) is among the airlines that have sent more than 5,300 beagles to Europe to be used in the experimentation industry since 2021.

PETA’s groundbreaking undercover investigation blew the lid off neglect, intense confinement, suffering, and death at Envigo’s massive beagle-breeding facility and sparked a domino effect that led to its closure. PETA’s 2021 exposé was followed by the seizure of nearly 450 dogs and puppies “in acute distress,” federal citations for dozens of violations of animal welfare laws, and a legal battle between Envigo and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Envigo’s parent company, Inotiv, announced that it would close the Cumberland facility, and a federal court approved the DOJ’s plan to remove all 3,776 surviving dogs for a chance at adoption.

“The documents obtained by PETA suggest that even as Envigo was preparing to close up shop in Virginia, it was trying to squeeze every last cent from these dogs by shipping nearly 100 of them to Europe,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA is calling for an end to this bloody business and is urging SAS to stop partnering with these cruel facilities by refusing to transport dogs to their deaths.”

The dogs from Envigo were headed to, among other facilities, Charles River Laboratories in Hungary, several pharmaceutical laboratories, and Envigo facilities in the Netherlands and the U.K. Charles River conducts painful tests on animals for companies that produce industrial chemicals, pesticides, food additives, and pharmaceuticals by force-feeding them test compounds, smearing experimental chemicals onto their shaved skin, and forcing them to inhale toxic substances.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.