Head of PETA ‘Owl’ to Be Drilled on JHU Campus

For Immediate Release:
November 2, 2021

Contact:
Amanda Hays 202-483-7382

Johns Hopkins University (JHU) experimenter Shreesh Mysore conducted invasive brain experiments on owls without valid permits for four years, and is still conducting these needlessly invasive experiments, so tomorrow, PETA is sending letters to government bodies demanding accountability. At the same time, PETA supporters will protest on the JHU campus—including a “mad scientist” who will “drill” into the skull of an “owl.”

When:    Wednesday, November 3, 12 noon

Where:    JHU, Keyser Quad, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore

In the letters to state and federal officials, PETA is asking that Mysore be penalized for failing to obtain permits from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (MD DNR) to conduct his painful experiments on owls. In these taxpayer-funded experiments, Mysore implants electrodes in their brains, forces the birds into cramped jackets or plastic tubes, clamps their eyes open, and bombards them with sounds and lights for up to 12 hours. Even though he conducted these experiments in violation of Maryland state law for four years, neither the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which funds these experiments, nor the MD DNR has held him accountable. PETA asks the MD DNR to bar Mysore from obtaining future permits and asks the NIH Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare to stop enabling animal experimenters in breaking the law without consequences.

“Not only are Mysore’s deadly experiments on owls cruel, for years they took place illegally,” says PETA Vice President Shalin Gala. “PETA is urging the government to throw the book at this rogue experimenter, who terrorizes birds and acts as if he’s above the law.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview.

Please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.