Beagle Freedom Project advocates make creative use of open records requests to liberate laboratory dogs and cats

The Beagle Freedom Project has launched its new national “Identity Campaign,” which seeks to empower supporters and members of the public to use state open records laws on an unprecedented scale in order to advocate for dogs and cats used for animal testing in laboratories. Utilizing state open records laws, BFP has amassed a list of nearly 1,000 dogs and cats available to sponsor as they sit in cages at university laboratories across the country.

Using an online "animal finder” tool, members of the public can browse through records of nearly a thousand individual dogs and cats confined in taxpayer-funded university research facilities around the United States and choose one to “adopt.”

After “adopting” an available animal and giving him or her a name, the supporter will receive a Welcome Kit in the mail that includes an adoption certificate and an engraved stainless steel tag bearing the animal’s identification number and laboratory location. The Welcome Kit also contains a template records request that the adopter can fill out and mail to the laboratory to acquire veterinary reports, health records, and daily care logs for their adopted animal.

For more information: http://www.identitycampaign.org/adopt_lab_animals and http://www.identitycampaign.org/animal_finder.