08/10/05 The Revision of Animal Experiments
Urged by the recent events connected to the illegal experiments on the 32 beagle dogs on the Clinic of Surgery, Orthopaedy and Ophthalmology at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Zagreb, Animal Friends and Zagreb Association of Animal Welfare Organizations, on Wednesday, August 10, 2005, sent a demand for a revision of all Formal Decisions issued by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management, which, for the year 2005, approved 69 different experiments on 1,000 animals.
ANIMAL FRIENDS
Gunduliceva 21 a
10000 Zagreb
ZAGREB ASSOCIATION OF ANIMAL WELFARE ORGANIZATIONS
COMMITTEE FOR ANIMAL RIGHTS
Osredak 19
10000 Zagreb
GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF CROATIA
OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER OF THE REPUBLIC OF CROATIA
ST. MARK'S SQUARE 2
10000 ZAGREB
10 August 2005
Dear Sirs:
Ref: A Demand for the Revision of Issued Formal Decisions for Conduting Animal Experiments
Urged by the recent events connected to the illegal experiments on the 32 beagle dogs on the Clinic of Surgery, Orthopaedy and Ophthalmology at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Zagreb, we felt free to contact you with a demand for the constitution of an expert Commission on the level of the Republic of Croatia, which will perform a revision of all Formal Decisions issued by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management, which, for the year 2005, approved 69 different experiments on 1,000 animals.
It is very important that at least two representatives of animal protection and rights organization be part of the Commission, so that, aside the control of meeting expert aspects, an efficient control of adhering to and respecting relevant rule books and laws could be carried out.
The revision of issued permissions for experiments must be performed:
- to establish beyond dispute justifiability of animal experiments in accordance with the Animal Welfare Act (NN 19/99).
- to establish the conditions in which the applicant of the requirement keeps experimental animals in accordance with the Rule Book of keeping of experimental animals, special terms of housing and the types of experiments (NN 176/04).
- to establish the sources from which the applicant of the requirement obtained animals needed for the experiments.
- to establish whether the veterinary inspectors of the Ministry performed the inspection supervision in accordance with the rights and obligations defined by veterinary medicine regulations.
As the case with the beagles on the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Zagreb questioned the legality of conducting the experiments in accordance with the rule books and the Animal Welfare Act, we expect that you will help us in our efforts to prevent "the beagles affair" from happening ever again and that experiments in the Republic of Croatia are conducted only in accordance with valid legal provisions. Therefore, we once more demand the constitution of the expert Commission on the level of the Republic of Croatia.
Yours sincerely,
ANIMAL FRIENDS
President
Luka Oman
ZAGREB ASSOCIATION OF ANIMAL WELFARE ORGANIZATIONS
COMMITTEE FOR ANIMAL RIGHTS
President
Jadranka Dragovic
