Last week, the Animal Legal Defense Fund (“ALDF”, with whom we are suing the USDA!) announced the rescue of six Goettingen pigs from an undisclosed research laboratory.
And, this week, a historic protest of Marshall BioResources – animal research and breeding horror house – will be taking place in North Rose, New York.
Scratch the surface, and it becomes clear that these two events are fundamentally linked: the rescued Goettingen pigs were almost certainly “engineered” and sold into vivisection by Marshall BioResources.
Goettingen pigs were “developed” (i.e., crossbred) in the 1960s “specifically for use in biomedical research” – “to meet the demand for a non-rodent model with many similarities to humans” – and, over the past decades, have become (in the words of their exploiters) a “purpose bred” “research tool par excellence”.
Researchers originally sought and continue to demand little pigs like the Goettingens – who are among the smallest of minipigs and average 77-88 pounds when fully grown – because they are easier to manhandle, “more convenient to fit into small laboratory cages”, and cheaper to use (for example, their small size translates into less food and smaller doses of test compounds and anesthetics).
Today, the “entire breeding population is found in three physical locations”, only one of which is located in the United States – in North Rose, New York, the home of Marshall BioResources. Indeed, Marshall boasts of being the “exclusive supplier of Goettingen Minipigs in North America”.
Marshall is infamous within the anti-vivisection community for its breeding, neglect, torture, and killing of sentient beings, including dogs and ferrets. But, as it turns out, minipigs – similar to Marshall’s beagles and ferrets in all ways that matter – are also among its victims.
Marshall and other members of the animal research industry have emphasized the exploitation of Goettingen pigs for myriad, self-serving reasons, including that:
- They are “suitab[le] for most testing purposes” and “can be used for all routes of administration” (i.e., “In addition to the dermal route of administration, minipigs are easily dosed via oral (gavage or capsule), intravenous and subcutaneous routes.”).
- Their “production efficiency is relatively high”, including because they achieve puberty “relatively faster” and birth larger litters than “other large animal species”.
- They have “a convenient body size for surgical procedures….”
And, perhaps most tragically of all:
- Their exploitation is less contentious than the use of dogs and nonhuman primates (i.e., their use and brutalization is “more acceptable to the general public”).
As society has increasingly challenged the animal research industry’s use of “non-rodent species”, pigs have become – according to animal researchers – an “advantageous alternative species, since it is accepted by society as a production animal and thus has a lower emotional merit.”
In this way, exploitation continues to beget exploitation: because humans raise, brutalize, and slaughter pigs for “food”, humans are less concerned about pigs being bred, “poisoned, mutilated, implanted with equipment, and killed for a variety of experiments” inside laboratories.
The use of minipigs in animal research “continues to grow every year” – in fact, they “are being used in more research fields than ever” and are “poised to replace standard, non-rodent species in many pharmaceutical development programs” – and, among minipigs, the Goettingen pig is the most commonly victimized.
As such, these small, sentient beings are confined in industrial settings and harmed as “models for humans”, including for cardiac, pharmacology, and diabetes research; dermal research; orthopedic research; “dental and surgical practice”; and toxicity testing. (With regard to the latter researchers report that these little pigs can often be forced to ingest compounds orally, including through gavage – the forcing of a tube down their throat and into their stomach – which “can be done in the conscious animal by restraining the animal with a mouth gag and using a 6 mm soft sonde”).
Above, two rescued pigs are released into their safe, new home at Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary. (Video: Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary)
Such violence is reaped upon the pigs Marshall breeds, uses for, and sells into scientific slavery, not only for the reasons already discussed but also because they are “small, compliant, docile”.
. . . their sweet and gentle nature is exploited to subject them to invasive and often painful procedures, much like beagle dogs. Sanctuary staff have reported that Go[e]ttingen pigs don’t even squeal when getting vaccinations – a reaction that is unlike other breeds of pigs.
So, we must squeal for them, and we must start now.