ACTION ALERT:
Contact the USDA to Demand a Maximum FINE against University of Louisiana, Lafayette:SAEN Calls for New USDA Fine Following 8 Monkey Jailbreak in 2018
at UL
From Sharlee Jacobs,
KADN.com, May 20, 2019
LAFAYETTE/NEW IBERIA, LA – The University of
Louisiana, Lafayette (ULL), is the target of a new ‘Official Complaint’
filed by the Research Watchdog group SAEN (Stop Animal Exploitation NOW!)
following an 8-monkey escape. A federal record obtained by SAEN reveals the
2018 jailbreak, in which one monkey was on the loose for two days.
Previous accounts of the 2018 escape had disclosed that only one monkey had
escaped.
A federal report from September 2018, obtained by SAEN, who monitors U.S.
research facilities for illegal activity and animal abuse, documents the
8-monkey escape. The report was acquired via FOIA.
SAEN has filed an Official Complaint with the USDA, calling for the maximum
penalty of $10,000 per infraction/per animal.
The University of Louisiana, Lafayette, has been previously been fined four
times by the USDA since 2007, with the most recent penalty of $100,000
coming in 2017. The earlier fines were: $38,571 in 2013, $18,000 in 2010,
and $2062 in 2007.
“The University of Louisiana, Lafayette, is amazingly inept,” said Michael
A. Budkie, A.H.T., SAEN’s executive director. “It is unbelievable that a
primate lab which has been in existence since the 1950s is still incapable
of simply keeping the monkeys confined in enclosures.”