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Contact:
Dr. Robert Gibbens Director, Western Region, USDA
(970) 494-7478
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[email protected]
SAMPLE MESSAGE:
Please LEVY a MAXIMUM FINE against Antibodies Inc. for their blatant disregard of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) when their negligence killed five alpacas. Their behavior must NOT be tolerated and MUST be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
Five alpacas dead from oleander
poisoning
By George Ugartemendia, TheAggie.com, Novembe 30, 2017
Unattended brush pile source of deadly July accident at Antibodies, Inc.
Five alpacas died at Antibodies, Inc., an immunochemistry products and
services provider in Davis, over the summer due to oleander consumption. The
final investigative report from the company was recently made available by
Stop Animal Exploitation Now!.
“We obtained the documents through the Freedom of Information Act,” said
Michael Budkie, the co-founder of SAEN. “It was in the possession of the
Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare at the National Institutes of Health. We
routinely file Freedom of Information Act requests with the federal
government to obtain documents like this for every registered research
facility in the United States.”
According to the official report from Antibodies, Inc., an employee
collected leaves and trimmings into a brush pile near a pasture where the
alpacas are allowed time outside. Eight alpacas were able to browse the pile
for food on a Friday, and ate enough material that four were dead by
Saturday morning. A fifth was euthanized later by a veterinarian after it
was determined to be too sick to recover. A sixth alpaca survived the
poisoning with kidney damage.
The animals were treated at the UC Davis Veterinary Medicine Teaching
Hospital. The dead animals were examined and necropsied at the California
Animal Health & Food Safety Laboratory, where oleander consumption was
confirmed.
Antibodies, Inc. has alpacas at its facility to collect antibodies from
their blood for research purposes. Although oleander is normally not
accessible to the alpacas in their pasture, the report indicates the
trimmings were collected “from an off-site location” into a nearby pile.
“Oleander is very common all over Northern California,” said Dr. Julie
Dechant, a UC Davis associate professor in equine emergency surgery and
critical care who serves as the designated camelid medical expert. “It’s in
the roadway medians. It’s often a border around pastures.”
All parts of the plant, from the roots to the leaves, are poisonous.
Oleander is appreciated for its pleasing appearance and use as a
windbreaker. The leaves are bitter, but since the poisonous dose may only be
a few leaves, foraging animals can become seriously ill. The heart and
kidneys are the organs most severely affected.
“Palatability varies among livestock species,” said Dr. Pam Hullinger, the
director of the California Animal Health & Food Safety Lab at UC Davis, in
an email interview. “While oleander may not be as attractive to animals as
hay or grain, livestock still will consume it on occasion.”
The symptoms of oleander poisoning in livestock are subtle. If an animal is
suspected of having consumed oleander, only a few treatment options are
available.
“Treatments are usually supportive,” Dechant said. “There is a potential
antidote, which is actually for digoxin overdoses, but it’s
cost-prohibitively expensive. We don’t stock it, because it is so expensive
and clients can’t afford it. Often, we’re giving them activated charcoal,
because that will bind the toxin in their intestinal tract. We’ll give them
IV fluids because oleander affects the heart, kidneys, and intestinal tract.
There are a few other treatments that are also supportive for the heart.”
The best way to keep animals safe from oleander poisoning is to keep the
shrubs away from areas where animals can roam. Uprooting existing plants can
be proactive.
“As with all plant intoxications in livestock, prevention is the best
approach,” Hullinger said. “Unless an owner directly observes their animal
eating oleander, oleander poisoning can only be diagnosed by testing for the
toxin in the animal (serum, gut contents), animal tissues (after death) or
in plant material.”
Allowing animals to die due to negligence in a research facility is a
serious issue which requires immediate site changes. Training employees
about the dangers of oleander, inspection of the pastures before releasing
animals into pens, and sign installations are some of the changes made
following the alpaca poisonings. More penalties may follow for Antibodies,
Inc.
“The first thing that will happen is the USDA will investigate this
incident, and they should issue at least one, if not multiple, citations
under the Animal Welfare Act,” Budkie said.See also:
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