Baby Monkey Deaths at UL-Lafayette Prompt PETA to Push for Charges

For Immediate Release:
October 14, 2021

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

After uncovering a U.S. Department of Agriculture report revealing that five infant monkeys died of dehydration at the University of Louisiana–Lafayette, PETA is urging District Attorney Donald D. Landry to investigate and file cruelty-to-animals charges.

UL-Lafayette violated a federal Animal Welfare Act regulation by denying water to the monkeys. Employees failed to check a watering device that was broken, causing animals to suffer from dehydration. According to federal reports, staff neglected to investigate the problem adequately after the first monkey died and four more monkeys then died or had to be euthanized. These deaths occurred over just two days.

“These infant monkeys couldn’t even depend on staff for necessities as basic as water,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA is calling on the district attorney to investigate UL-Lafayette and file charges against those responsible for the suffering that they’ve caused.”

This isn’t the first time that UL-Lafayette has flouted federal animal welfare laws. In 2017, it paid a $100,000 fine following several violations, including one in which a monkey was injured and died of a brain hemorrhage and another in which laboratory workers broke the arm of a mother monkey who was attempting to protect her infant—and then failed to provide the injured animal with veterinary care for five days.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.