PETA Awards Trailblazing University of New Mexico Professor
Dr. John Gluck Celebrated for His Work to End Experiments on Monkeys
For Immediate Release:
September 10, 2021
Contact:
Amanda Hays 202-483-7382
PETA is presenting University of New Mexico (UNM) emeritus professor of psychology Dr. John Gluck with its Trailblazer Award to honor his ethical journey from animal experimenter to animal rights champion and for everything he has done to inform scientists and others about issues with imprisoning and harming animals in laboratories.
Gluck began his career in a primate laboratory and was indoctrinated into a culture that imprisons and tortures monkeys.
“I remember many times seeing these monkeys in the experimental apparatus and looking so helpless and confused and frightened. It got me thinking … who are these beings?” Gluck explains in a video for PETA. “There came a time when I couldn’t chase the questions away anymore.”
Gluck’s misgivings about the use of animals in experiments and the deep connections that he developed with the monkeys in his laboratory led him to pursue a bioethics fellowship at Georgetown University. After years of working within UNM to encourage his colleagues to examine their use of animals, he began working alongside PETA and others to end experiments on primates by using his deep understanding of their behavior and needs. He participated in the #IStoppedYouCanToo campaign, which pushes experimenters to question the status quo that keeps hundreds of thousands of animals imprisoned in laboratories, subjected to pointless and cruel procedures, and he authored the book Voracious Science and Vulnerable Animals, a poignant account of his ethical journey.
“It’s never too late to help animals, and Dr. Gluck’s compassion and courageous advocacy speak to that,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA honors this pioneer for recognizing every animal as an individual, not a test tube.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
