PETA – People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals
For Immediate Release:
August 13, 2008
Contact:
Shalin Gala 757-622-7382
Naples, Fla. — Today, Get Out of Town Travel signed on to PETA’s travel boycott of St. Kitts over the deliberate mutilation and killing of healthy sheep, donkeys, and goats at the island’s Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine. PETA has been urging Ross to join other veterinary schools in using only modern teaching methods that do not harm healthy animals. Ross announced that it would end invasive and terminal surgeries on healthy dogs but continues to require students to cut up and kill healthy donkeys, goats, and sheep. PETA wants the school to adopt the more modern teaching methods now in use in veterinary schools around the world, such as sophisticated simulators and providing treatment for sick animals.
“Veterinary students whose goal is to help animals should not be required to cut open donkeys, sheep, and goats in unnecessary operations, help them to recover, and then end their lives. I urge you implement more humane training methods immediately,” wrote Get Out of Town Travel President Nancy Reyelt. “Effective immediately, my agency will no longer book any travel or vacation packages to St. Kitts until Ross University follows the lead of other more progressive veterinary schools that do not perform any harmful procedures on animals.”
Anguished Ross students–including some from the U.S.–complained about cruel teaching procedures in which donkeys’ nerves and ligaments were severed and sheep were suffering from infected surgical wounds. As a result, PETA asked St. Kitts government officials to investigate the veterinary school for violations of the island’s Protection of Animals Act. However, St. Kitts officials have refused to take these life-and-death allegations seriously.
“We thank Get Out of Town Travel for joining the travel boycott against St. Kitt’s”, says PETA Laboratory Investigations Director Kathy Guillermo. “Compassionate tourists won’t want to set foot on an island where officials look the other way when animals are being harmed and killed.”
Get Out of Town Travel’s letter to PETA is available upon request. For more information, please visit PETA’s Web site www.StopAnimalTests.com