Giant PETA ‘Monkeys’ to Loom Over Harvard Alumni Event at Miami Beach’s Fontainebleau

For Immediate Release:
February 18, 2025

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Miami –

A towering pair of inflatable PETA monkeys wearing blindfolds will greet Harvard University alumni arriving at the Fontainebleau Hotel on Wednesday for an event headlined by President Alan M. Garber. A troop of animal defenders will also hold giant images of monkeys trapped in the university’s laboratory and signs reading, “Harvard President Garber: End Baby Monkey Tests!”

The action is part of PETA’s campaign urging the school to shut down experimenter Margaret Livingstone’s cruel tests on baby monkeys. Livingstone has torn infants away from their mothers, forced them to wear goggles that simulate disorienting strobe lights for 12 hours a day, and implanted electrodes in their brains. She’s sewn other monkeys’ eyes shut. After years of torment, she kills and dissects many of the animals.

“While alumni sip cocktails at the Fontainebleau, infant monkeys are trapped and terrorized inside Margaret Livingstone’s laboratory,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “PETA calls for an end to these massively wasteful experiments and for Harvard to invest in animal-free research that actually helps humans.”

Where: Outside the Fontainebleau Miami Beach, 4441 Collins Ave.

When: Wednesday, February 19, 5:30 p.m.

*Like this monkey, infant monkeys in Livingstone’s laboratory are caged alone.* *Photo: PETA*

Why: Livingstone has spent 40 years terrifying monkeys and other animals in agonizing experiments. She has collected more than $33 million in taxpayer money despite never producing a single treatment or cure for humans. More than 380 experts—including primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall, conservationist Dr. Ian Redmond, and Harvard anthropologist Dr. Richard Wrangham—have joined PETA and Harvard’s own Animal Law & Policy Clinic in urging the National Institutes of Health to defund Livingstone’s experiments.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.