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The University of Utah has ended its policy of obtaining dogs and cats from animal shelters for use in biomedical experiments, a top U. official confirmed Tuesday.
The decades-old practice halted in mid-January, when U. lab managers quietly notified their sole provider, North Utah Valley Animal Shelter in Lindon, that they no longer would buy its pound animals, U. Vice President for Research Thomas Parks said.
The decision, Parks said, was intended to end an intense, months-long campaign against the shelter by animal-welfare advocates who have sought to end its sales of strays and discarded pets otherwise slated for euthanasia to university researchers.
Parks said the U. now would obtain specially bred dogs and cats from certified breeders, at considerably higher cost.
"The impact on our investigators will not be severe,'' he added. "We do not expect any disruption in ongoing research programs.''
A spokeswoman for the Virginia-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals welcomed the U.'s decision.
"PETA is thrilled for the dogs, cats and people of Utah now that the University of Utah has stopped using animal shelters as dirt-cheap sources of living lab equipment, marking the complete end of pound seizure in the state,'' said Kathy Guillermo, PETA's vice president for laboratory investigations.
Guillermo said she hoped the added cost of specially bred animals would force the U. to explore alternatives to the use of live subjects in its experiments.
Contending the animal sales are cruel and a betrayal of public trust, national and local animal advocacy groups have targeted the Utah County shelter, which has fielded thousands of hostile e-mails and calls, several bomb scares and at least three on-site protests.
Parks said employees at the nonprofit, volunteer-staffed municipal shelter "have been suffering a lot of harassment and, really, they've been doing this on our behalf.''
"They didn't want to give up, especially not in the face of pressure,'' he said. "But we decided we'd just quietly get them out of the line of fire, because it wasn't strictly necessary that we use those animals.''
Shelter director Tug Gettling said the policy change was the U.'s idea and that shelter officials stand by their belief that providing the animals helped ease human suffering and advanced medical and veterinary knowledge.
And while noting the policy change would effectively end a chance at life for sizable numbers of shelter animals that survived U. labs and later were adopted, Gettling nonetheless praised the school for its policy shift.
Gettling's shelter was the last facility to continue providing pound animals to the U. after a 2010 change in state law made it voluntary for shelters to participate. Before the change, Utah shelters were required to hand over animals to certified research labs upon request, although most refused to comply.
The North Utah Valley Animal Shelter sold the U. about 100 dogs and cats a year, according to Gettling's own estimates.
A Salt Lake Tribune investigation a year ago found that about 60 percent of all shelter animals sent to the U. between 2007 and 2009 were killed after being experimented on, while the rest went into a robust adoption program.
Pound seizures in Utah came to light in late 2009, when an infiltrator from PETA went public with findings from an eight-month investigation of animal treatment at U. labs.
The publicity splash and an ensuing formal complaint filed by PETA led to probes of U. labs by two federal agencies and minor citations for improper practices.