SeaFrance are a large ferry company operating on the English Channel and owned in their entirety by the French Government.

We have had our eye on SeaFrance for a number of months due to them being one of the few sea carriers of laboratory animals for the British research industry. Vans containing primates, dogs and rodents boarded onto their ferries on a weekly basis, providing the connection between England and France for shipments.

The foreign export market provides at minimum 40% of the income for Britain's laboratory animal breeders, Harlan and Charles River Laboratories. Around fifteen van loads of animals leave the UK each week from both companies combined.

Now news that an EC ruling has forced SeaFrance into liquidation has hit us and the breeders, only days after an embargo was made by another ferry company leaving SF as Britain's only sea shippers of animals for vivisection.

As an island reliant on the foreign market for income this news will hit Britain's laboratory animal breeders hard, if not push them into the red and towards closure. This trade has literally been sunk as there are now no known transporters of laboratory animals by sea.