NEW YORK, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- The closed colonies produced more than 97 percent of canine blood products, including whole blood, red blood cells and fresh frozen plasma, sold in the U.S. state of California through September of this year, and that divide will leave California tethered for many more years to a system it vowed to leave behind, reported the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday.

"For decades, California veterinarians were required to buy blood exclusively from closed colonies in the state, a system regulators decided would ensure the products were safe and the donors free of diseases," said the report. "Veterinary hospitals that collected blood in-house for their patients weren't allowed to sell it."

But in 2021, state lawmakers declared closed colonies inhumane because the animals are held captive. They vowed to replace them with community blood banks and ordered that the state's inspection reports -- long sealed -- be open to public scrutiny, according to the report.

The law, however, included critical caveats: only closed colonies for dogs would be shut down, and that phaseout would begin after community blood banks, where owners volunteer their pets to give blood, consistently matched their output.

After three years, they're not even close. California's closed colonies continue to supply the bulk of canine blood sold in the state.

"Without the blood supplied by captive donors, veterinarians say, many other dogs in critical need would die from injuries and disease. But this poses a dilemma for those who want to see the closed colonies shut down," it added. Enditem

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