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The Washington National Primate Research Center (WaNPRC) experimenters at the University of Washington appear to be under pressure from the public, thanks to our recent video that took a peek into this secret laboratory for the first time. UW does not invite people to see the highly social and sensitive monkeys that have been kept in cupboard-sized cages for years. But the video, which has appeared on social media platforms, local TV channels and mobile billboards, was recorded by the experimenters themselves just a few years ago.
In the video, you see the heartbreaking reality of daily life for monkeys: small sterile cells; lack of natural light; and the deafening sound of metal on metal as these desperate and deeply distraught monkeys endlessly pace or throw themselves against the walls of the cage.
Desperate to excuse these horrors, WaNPRC recently posted FAQs in an attempt to defend its containment and cage practices, but its “facts” are misleading, weak and inconclusive. Perhaps the biggest irony is that for more than three decades, scientists at WaNPRC have published articles recognizing that the cells and conditions in which monkeys are kept have profoundly negative effects on animal welfare and even distort experimental results. A caged macaque is not a representative model of normal human physiology, immunology, or behavior.
In nature, macaques live in large groups with strict hierarchies and a strong focus on social relationships. Infant macaques are adored, and female macaques remain in their genus group for life. Macaques will travel several miles a day through challenging and varied habitats, where their intelligence, dexterous fingers, climbing and swimming abilities allow them to forage and explore fruits, berries, nuts, leaves, insects, roots, buds and more. When they stop during the day to rest, adults usually groom themselves while young animals play. At night, the squad returns to their favorite sleeping tree, where they find safety and comfort, huddled together. This extraordinary behavioral and ecological flexibility, comparable only to our own, has allowed macaques to spread throughout the world.
Adult male macaques are about the same size as a two-year-old child. At WaNPRC, macaques are housed alone in cages 3 feet high and less than 6 square feet. A metal handrail made of two steel bars is located 30 cm above the wire floor. They can turn around in cages – that’s all. Females, which are slightly smaller, are usually separated from their babies shortly after birth. The only thing worse than being in a cage at the WaNPRC is being alone in a cage after your baby has been taken away from you.
It’s time to test WaNPRC’s claims about keeping monkeys and enriching them.
WaNPRC Claim # 1: At WaNPRC, we have a dedicated behavior management team that works closely with our veterinary and livestock teams to provide the best possible care for our animals.
Truth: It does not mention that the reported systemic financial crises led to draconian cost-cutting measures. WaNPRC’s behavioral management team has been devastated over the past three years and severely understaffed. Retirement, layoffs, lack of funds, and the difficulty of finding people willing to spend day after day watching the pain, fear and despair of these caged monkeys mean fewer and fewer employees are available to oversee and / or develop mitigation measures. chronic behavioral disorders. issues such as stress plucking, self biting, and stereotypes. And the monkeys are still alone in cramped cages.
WaNPRC Claim # 2: Social housing is DEFAULT housing for ALL animals. We maintain a socialization rate of at least 80% every month.
Truth: The devil is in the details. Seattle contains 400 to 500 macaques in its underground and windowless labs. The vast majority of these monkeys are on active experimental protocols – they are used in experiments and are not included in this 80%. Vivisectors at WaNPRC are a surprisingly mysterious group, and despite countless publications over the past 30 years showing that solitary housing causes physiological and immunological variations in monkeys that can skew research results, they continue to request and receive accommodation benefits.
Monkeys used for experiments are often placed in tiny and practically sterile cages for life, devoid of everything that is natural and important to them.
WaNPRC veterinarians issue medical benefits to allow single housing. This happens when monkeys get sick from unintentional infections like MRSA, suffer from chronic diarrhea, or simply cannot get along with other monkeys. Over the past eight months, veterinary staff have reported 217 clinical cases of vomiting / gastrointestinal disease / diarrhea, 19 cases of rectal prolapse, 323 cases of trauma and hundreds of other clinical cases not directly related to the experimental protocols. While it’s true that federal animal welfare regulations strongly recommend social housing, what you actually see is exactly what you see in the video: almost every monkey lives on its own.
WaNPRC Claim # 3: [T]Most of our non-exempt animals are housed in social housing every month.
Truth: This statement is clearly intended to mislead the public. “Non-exempt animals” only refer to those monkeys that are not used in experiments, and this is a small number. Too many WaNPRC monkeys are freed from social housing, and the remaining minority are rarely housed in pairs. Rather than investing resources to ensure successful mating of monkeys, WaNPRC exploits a loophole in federal regulations and may argue that monkeys are “socially housed” if it places two individual monkeys in adjacent cages with trellises wide enough on one side for the animals. stick your fingers. They call it “caregiver contact” or “protected contact” housing, and it is a ludicrous and brutal substitute for pair or group social housing. And even such a meager number of contacts is often temporary as a result of research needs – pairs of monkeys are broken up and distributed according to different experimenters or different protocols.
WaNPRC Claim # 4: There are very important reasons why an animal may be kept separately for a certain period of time, including: Experimental reasons requiring an approved Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) approval, which includes scientific justification.
Truth: He forgot to mention that the collegiate IACUC acts as a die committee, approving nearly all requests for experimental twin housing exemptions. The IACUC UW has been repeatedly cited by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for – and the university has been fined for – failing to provide adequate oversight of an institution’s animal use program. This is again being investigated by the USDA and the Laboratory Animal Welfare Administration. The constant stream of fines and investigations can be attributed to the IACUC’s composition, which is dominated by animal experimenters, institutional staff, and even commun
ity members whose livelihoods are linked to the use of animals.
WaNPRC Claim # 5: A video posted on extremist websites about animals at the University of Washington’s WaNPRC was filmed between 2012 and 2013. Between 2012 and 2017, four National Primate Research Centers (NPRCs) participated in a collaborative research project aimed at improving the health of captive primates: collecting and evaluating temperament data based on an animal’s response to new stimuli.
Truth: In 2017, PETA filed a Freedom of Information request to receive videos related to research conducted by experimenter Melinda Novak at the University of Massachusetts Amherst under a project called Primate Self-Harming Behavior and Welfare. The footage was filmed at four National Primate Research Centers – Oregon National Primate Research Center, Southwest National Primate Research Center, WaNPRC and the now-closed New England National Primate Research Center. Since 1990, Novak has received more than $ 10 million from taxpayer funds to study how and why monkeys mutilate themselves in laboratories. She suddenly retired after PETA filed a lawsuit.
Although the footage was recorded between 2012 and 2013, conditions at WaNPRC have not improved. Monkeys are still trapped in cramped, sterile steel cages with only disappointment, and are still deprived of everything that could make them a life worth living. Subsequently, they show signs of extreme psychological distress and clinical depression, including hair pulling, biting themselves, hair loss (alopecia), and stereotypical movements such as walking and rocking. WaNPRC and other primate centers have not taken action based on information from Novak’s research to improve the conditions for the monkeys.
WaNPRC Claim # 6: Understanding temperament can lead to better personalized care and improved animal welfare. It can indicate how an animal might respond to research procedures, personnel, social interactions, positive reinforcement learning, or new enrichment.
Truth: While the purported goal of these four decades of research was to show how monkeys suffer while in cages in laboratories in order to prevent this injury – and although Novak has published 100 journal articles about her research – NOT A SINGLE improvement to help monkeys. experiments were added as a requirement to the Federal Animal Welfare Act.
WaNPRC Claim # 7: Temperament ratings were videotaped for the same people to post, reducing potential observer bias.
Truth: Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel, PETA’s own primatologist and former UW professor, said the following:
These videos demonstrate a striking lack of scientific rigor. Experimental settings vary widely and show a clear lack of standardization for study variables such as living / testing conditions, age, gender, and tester familiarity. Scientists themselves admit this in their publications, citing inconsistencies in research subjects and design.
Act for the primates!
WaNPRC opened six decades ago and has failed to produce the promised marketable vaccines to protect people from disease. It’s time to close this senseless and cruel center.
Close the Primate Center!
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