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Dr. Robert Gibbens Director, Western Region, USDAResearch monkey strangles to death at
new UW animal lab
From Sandi Doughton,
SeattleTimes.com, September 20, 2018
The pigtail macaque got tangled in a chain dangling from a device attached to its cage at the recently opened underground facility.
A research monkey strangled to death this spring at the University of
Washington’s new, underground animal laboratory.
Records released by the animal rights organization Stop Animal Exploitation
Now show that the pigtail macaque got tangled in a chain dangling from a
device called a foraging board attached to its cage.
“The animal was able to pull a portion of a chain through the bars and
around its head and got it caught on its jaw, resulting in asphyxiation,”
says a May 1 letter from the UW notifying the National Institutes of
Health’s Office of Animal Research of the incident.
A foraging board holds food that monkeys can extract themselves, simulating
foraging in the wild and enriching the caged animals’ environment. The UW
letter says the device had been modified and was not installed properly.
The monkey’s social partner, housed either in the same or an adjacent
cage, witnessed the death and was sedated with Valium, the letter adds.
“The death of a healthy pigtail macaque in April 2018 was a tragic and
unexpected loss,” UW spokeswoman Tina Mankowski wrote in an email to The
Seattle Times. “All of the foraging devices were removed from the cages
within an hour of the incident and alternative forms of enrichment were
emphasized.”
Mankowski also pointed out that the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which
inspects animal research labs, has not cited the UW for the death.
Stop Animal Exploitation Now filed a complaint with USDA, asking the agency
to levy a fine against the university.
The monkey is the 10th primate to die accidentally at the UW since 2009,
when a male macaque starved to death. The USDA fined the university almost
$11,000 for that incident.
In 2014, the USDA cited the university for the deaths of three young monkeys
who were placed in cages with, or near, adult males who attacked them. The
UW earned another USDA citation in 2015, after three monkeys died after
surgery to fit them with skull and vertebral implants. In 2017, an
8-year-old female pigtail macaque died of thirst after the water line to its
cage became disconnected.
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