Campaign Pits Researchers Against Humane Groups : San Bernardino to Vote on Sale of Pound Dogs

In a municipal election that is drawing the attention of animal rights advocates and scientific groups across the country, voters here will decide June 3 whether to halt the sale of dogs by the city pound to research laboratories.

One of the last remaining sources of pound animals for research purposes in Southern California, the San Bernardino City Animal Shelter now sells about 1,000 of the 15,000 dogs it takes in each year to university and hospital research facilities, a spokesman for the pound said.

The campaign has pitted the area’s medical facilities and universities against local humane groups. Both sides traded charges Tuesday.

Defenders of the sales, including Loma Linda University Medical Center; California State University, San Bernardino; University of California, Riverside; the University of Redlands and a political action committee called Citizens for Responsible Research, say closure of the pound would cut off an important supply of low-cost animals and discourage expansion of the area’s medical research and treatment facilities.

Human Illnesses

At a press conference Tuesday, spokesmen for the universities declared in a joint statement that San Bernardino should stand “behind research technology of the type needed to cure cancer, heart disease, diabetes, birth defects . . . to name but a few.”

Opponents of the practice, including the San Bernardino Valley Humane Society, replied that sale of animals for research amounts to a breach of public trust.

“Citizens have a right to expect their tax-funded animal shelter to provide protection for lost or abandoned animals, to return them safely to their owner, to adopt them out to new homes or to put them to sleep humanely, not to ship them off to laboratories for what may be a slow and painful death,” said Jerry Rosen, vice president of the humane society.

Rosen emphasized that his group is “not fighting the use of animals in biomedical research”--only the use of San Bernardino’s animals for such purposes.

Local government officials throughout Southern California already have put pound animals off limits to research institutions, forcing many medical and scientific facilities to obtain animals from Northern California or outside the state. Here, the City Council opted to place the issue on the ballot and agreed to abide by the voters’ decision.

It is the first time that voters in a California city have been asked to decide such an issue, but advocates on both sides say researchers and animal rights groups across the nation are monitoring the election. Similar measures could pop up elsewhere, depending on the outcome.

“The whole research community is watching this election,” said Bell Cole, director of research and public policy for the University of California. “It is very important that we continue the flow of pound animals for research.”

Pet Protection Group

Michael Giannelli, a psychologist and director of the Los Angeles-based National Coalition to Protect Our Pets, agreed that the election is being watched and noted that a similar measure is on the June 3 ballot in Mendocino County.

The measure is labeled HH on the city ballot; a yes vote will favor continued use of pound animals for “research, testing and educational purposes to legally accredited organizations.” A no vote would halt the practice.

The San Bernardino Humane Society, a private nonprofit organization, plans to spend about $17,000 on the campaign.

On the other side, Citizens for Responsible Research has drawn much of its support and financing from private research institutions. Loma Linda University Medical Center alone has donated $15,000, said Ray Quinto, administrative officer at the Jerry L. Pettis Memorial Veterans Hospital in Loma Linda, who was at the press conference Tuesday.

Thus far, the committee has raised $45,000, far short of the $110,000 it figured would be needed to wage a successful campaign.