Provocative PETA Street Art Blitz Targets OHSU’s National Primate Center

Artwork Spotlights the Hidden Suffering of Monkeys at Oregon Health & Science University

For Immediate Release:
November 29, 2021

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Starting this week, Portland and Beaverton residents will be confronted by images of a traumatized baby monkey torn away from her family and abused by experimenters. Colombian street artist Praxis has joined forces with PETA to plaster the cities with thought-provoking street art demanding that the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC) at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU)—and the other six federally funded national primate research centers around the country—be shut down. Last week, Praxis’ artwork was displayed in Seattle to target the Washington National Primate Research Center at the University of Washington.

“OHSU’s primate center has squandered taxpayer dollars to make monkeys miserable and has failed to produce a marketable vaccine or cure for deadly human diseases,” says PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna. “PETA wants OHSU to shut down its failed laboratory and send the monkeys to reputable sanctuaries where they could live out the rest of their lives in peace.”

A 2007 PETA video exposé of the ONPRC revealed that monkeys were terrorized by staff, denied veterinary care and pain relief, and driven insane by confinement to small, barren cages. The ONPRC—which receives tens of millions in taxpayer money every year and currently holds more than 6,000 monkeys—has a long history of violating animal protection laws and guidelines. Monkeys have been burned when left unattended on heating pads, subjected to painful procedures that weren’t approved, and denied pain medication after major surgeries. Monkeys given the wrong dose of insulin had to be euthanized, as did another who became entangled in PVC pipes. One monkey died while trapped behind a cage because no one noticed that he was missing.

Locations for this artwork include downtown, the southeast neighborhood, and the art and university districts. Addresses are available upon request. Photos of the artwork in Beaverton and Portland can be found here.

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 newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.