PETA Exposes Mass Marmoset Killings at UMass After Experimenter Claims ‘Shortage’ of Monkeys
For Immediate Release:
November 21, 2024
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
In a letter sent today, PETA renews its call for the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (UMass) to shut down Agnès Lacreuse’s laboratory after obtaining records showing she killed 10 marmosets in just a month—after she complained to funders of a supposed “national shortage of marmosets.”
In a bid to move one of her nightmarish sleep deprivation experiments on the tiny monkeys to the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center (WNPRC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Lacreuse told NIH officials: “First, as a result of the national shortage of marmosets, we had great difficulty locating suitable marmosets for the project and for this reason requested to transfer the project to the WNPRC.”
“Crying to funders about a monkey shortage before ruthlessly massacring 10 shows there’s no limit to the dishonesty and depravity of Agnès Lacreuse,” says PETA Chief Scientist Dr. Katherine Roe. “PETA calls on UMass to shut down Lacreuse’s twisted tests immediately and send the survivors to accredited sanctuaries before any more can be harmed or killed in her clutches.”
PETA recently urged federal officials to investigate whether Lacreuse misused taxpayer money after she spent approximately $340,000 on a failed sleep deprivation experiment at the WNPRC. She planned to blast up to 12 marmosets with sounds as loud as a lawn mower every 15 minutes all night for up to two months. Despite spending three years on the project and nearly 78% of her more than $400,000 budget, Lacreuse failed to complete any goals in her grant application, but she returned only about 22% of the money.
In nature, marmosets live in cooperative groups high up in the canopies of rainforests, where they spend their time grooming each other, huddling affectionately, sharing food, and caring for their young. In Lacreuse’s laboratory, experimenters cut into and screw electrodes onto marmosets’ skulls, cut into their necks, deprive them of water, restrain them for hours at a time, and torment them in various other ways. She has squandered over $5 million in taxpayer money on these curiosity-driven tests.
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.
