Masked PETA ‘Monkeys’ to Demand Closure of Cruel, Delinquent Primate Lab

Protest, Ads, and More Mark ‘World Week for Animals in Laboratories’

For Immediate Release:
April 20, 2021

Contact:
Amanda Hays 202-483-7382

PETA protesters wearing monkey masks will descend on the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center (WNPRC) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison tomorrow with signs pointing out that—after 60 years, 16,000 dead monkeys, and $666 million in taxpayer funding—the WNPRC has produced zero cures for human diseases.

When:    Wednesday, April 21, 12 noon

Where:    Meeting at 1200 Spring St. (at the intersection with N. Charter St.) then descending upon the WNPRC at 1220 Capitol Ct.

The action comes during World Week for Animals in Laboratories (WW4AIL), taking place from April 18 to 24, during which PETA is ramping up the pressure on all seven federally funded National Primate Research Centers to close. The group is also running ads in The Capital Times, on the UW-Madison The Badger Herald website, and on Madison.com highlighting the plight of Cornelius, a monkey who—as revealed in PETA’s exposé of the facility—has been at the WNPRC for a decade, spending his lonely days hunched over and with his face pressed against the cage bars.

“For 60 years, this federally funded failure of a laboratory has produced nothing but pain, misery, and death for monkeys,” says PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna. “PETA is calling for the immediate closure of the WNPRC on behalf of the primates who desperately need to get out of small, barren cages and into spacious sanctuaries where they’ll have care and companionship at last.”

PETA’s other WW4AIL efforts include running a video starring Bill Maher—in which he calls out the cruelty and futility of using taxpayer dollars to fund fruitless experiments on monkeys—on conservative news sites.

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.