Caged PETA ‘Monkeys’ and Seattle Protesters to Demand Cruel Primate Lab Closure
Video Footage Reveals Monkeys’ Miserable Lives in Cages at the Washington National Primate Research Center
For Immediate Release:
January 13, 2021
Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382
Protesters from PETA and the Northwest Animal Rights Network wearing monkey masks and restraint collars—like those used to hook and lift monkeys to force them out of cages for experiments—will cage themselves on the University of Washington campus tomorrow to call for the Washington National Primate Research Center (WaNPRC) at the school to be shut down. The protest follows PETA’s release of video footage taken inside the WaNPRC showing highly social monkeys in solitary confinement inside cages barely larger than their bodies.
When: Thursday, January 14, 11:45 a.m.–1 p.m.
Where: 1205 N.E. Pacific St., Seattle
The WaNPRC has a long history of animal welfare violations. Monkeys have died from strangulation, starvation, dehydration, bleeding to death, being mauled by other stressed monkeys, and choking on their own vomit and because of veterinary error. The facility is currently under federal investigation for incidents in which monkeys have escaped and possible conflicts of interest on its experimentation oversight committee.
“The WaNPRC has wasted 60 years, millions of taxpayer dollars, and tens of thousands of monkeys’ lives while failing to produce a single marketable vaccine or cure for deadly human diseases,” says PETA Senior Science Adviser Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel. “PETA is calling on UW to follow in Harvard University’s footsteps and close its cruel primate research center.”
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.
