Animal rights groups trying to prevent the use of animals in biomedical research have recently begun targeting airlines and ferry companies involved in transporting lab animals, urging the companies to stop transporting the animals. Last week, ferry companies entirely ceased transporting all research animals into the UK. As The Channel Tunnel and all UK-based airlines already refuse to carry the animals, very few options remain for laboratories in the UK.

Former UK science minister Lord Drayson wrote in the Times of London that for transportation companies to bow to protestors' demands would be “inadvertently choking off vital research into some of the most debilitating diseases affecting our society.” An editorial published in Nature argued that if scientists want continued access to animals as research models, they will have to appear with as much visibility and determination as animal-rights activists (Nature–483, 373–374; 2012).

Transportation of lab animals into the US is also being targeted by protestors. Only a few major airlines continue to transport non-human primates and other research animals bound for research labs in the US. Many airlines, including Lufthansa, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, already refuse to carry research primates. Air Canada is petitioning the Canadian Transportation Agency for permission to refuse to transport research primates in the future. Air France faces mounting pressure as the last major European carrier to transport research primates. United Airlines was the last major US airline to carry non-human primates for research, but its merger with Continental may put that policy in jeopardy. Matthew Bailey, vice-president of the National Association for Biomedical Research in Washington, DC, told Nature News, “It's unfortunate that some airlines have chosen to capitulate to a small number of individuals with an agenda, who aren't truly representative of the general public.”

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Air travel is considered the fastest and least stressful way of transporting the animals, and many argue that moving the animals by other means can have deleterious effects on the animals' health. Making travel conditions less humane for animals is not the only way in which restricting the transport of animals may have the opposite of the intended effect. Researchers may be encouraged to move their research to countries where regulations are more lax. Furthermore, as Robin Lovell-Badge writes for New Scientist, “If we cannot transport animals, experiments will be repeated unnecessarily... This goes against the principles of reducing and refining the use of animals, which are important to reduce suffering.”