USDA Cites UC-Berkeley for Dehydrated Monkeys: PETA Statement

For Immediate Release:
June 16, 2022

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

Berkeley, Calif. –

Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo regarding the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) citation of the University of California–Berkeley for violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act, including for failing to provide water for monkeys:

If UC-Berkeley laboratory staff can’t remember to give something as basic as water to monkeys, the university should lose its license for conducting experiments on animals. Federal inspectors revealed that in March, a monkey had been found listless and dehydrated with sunken eyes, because staff had been confused about when to give water to the animal and had failed to weigh the monkey regularly, as required. Supposedly, staff was retrained—but another monkey was found dehydrated just two months later. What is even more alarming is that these monkeys were being used in a study for which they had been kept perpetually thirsty in order to coerce them to cooperate with experimenters for a sip of fluid. This is despicable—but unfortunately common—abuse by monkey experimenters.

In yet another incident, a metal collar placed on monkeys so that staff could lift them by their necks with a hooked pole was found to be too tight on one monkey, causing lesions around the animal’s neck.

These violations follow PETA’s May 12 complaint to the USDA after we uncovered documents revealing that a monkey had died of suffocation after becoming entangled in a chain inside a cage and that another monkey, subjected to brain surgery, had been administered expired painkillers. This mess of a university needs to stop tormenting animals and implement PETA scientists’ Research Modernization Deal, a strategy for replacing archaic, failed experiments on animals with high-tech, cutting-edge technology.

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