ACTION ALERT:
Contact:
Dr. Robert Gibbens
Director, Animal Welfare Operations, USDA-APHIS
[email protected]
[email protected]
Please levy the MAXIMUM FINE against University of Louisiana, Lafayette, for their blatant
disregard of the Animal Welfare Act when their negligence caused 3 monkeys
to die, possibly by heat stroke. Their behavior should NOT be tolerated and
MUST be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
Animal activist group raises concerns after monkeys die at UL's New Iberia site
From Ashley White, Daily Advertiser, January 27, 2021
An animal rights group is raising concerns after three monkeys apparently
died from heatstroke at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette's New
Iberia Research Center.
Stop Animal Exploitation NOW!, said in a news release it filed the complaint
last week with the U.S. Department of Agriculture after obtaining a report
outlining the monkeys' deaths that was sent from the New Iberia Research
Center's director to the director of the Division of Policy and Education at
the National Institutes of Health.
A spokesperson for the USDA said it could not confirm receipt of the
complaint.
"The University of Louisiana at Lafayette and its staff is diligent in the
care it provides non-human primates at the New Iberia Research Center," said
university spokesperson Eric Maron in an emailed statement. "The center
follows rules and guidelines established by the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services and other agencies."
"The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Laboratory Animal
Welfare, has determined that these precautionary actions were appropriate
and timely," he added.
Several breeding groups of rhesus macaques, which originated from Alice,
Texas, were transferred to outdoor housing after completing onboarding
isolation procedures, the center's director, Francois Villinger, said in a
letter to the National Institutes of Health's Office of Laboratory Welfare,
Maron said.
They were transferred outside between the hours of 8 a.m. and 9:10 a.m. on
Aug. 5. The temperatures were "comfortable for that time of year" and was
80-83 degrees outside, Villinger wrote.
"Animals were observed for 1-2.5 hours, showing no evidence of undue
aggressive behavior with a plan to recheck them in the early afternoon," he
wrote.
The center had sprinklers/misters set up and provided frozen fruit juice to
offset the heat as part of its standard procedures, according to the letter.
At 12:30 p.m., three monkeys were found dead. The necropsy and pathology
reports "strongly suggest heat stroke," Villinger wrote.
"Prior social groups had been established from this colony during similar
environmental conditions without incident or concern," he wrote, "and thus,
the Center staff could not have anticipated these deaths..."
The center reported the deaths to the National Institutes of Health on Aug.
26, Maron said.
Since the monkeys' deaths the center has installed wading pools and
sprinklers before creating social breeding groups during hot weather to
provide cooling measures for the monkeys while extending the behavioral
observations time, Maron said. The center also identified indoor/outdoor
housing that can be used during the summer to establish social groups with
the indoor portions being air-conditioned.
In the complaint provided in a news release, SAEN Executive Director Michael
Budkie claims the monkeys' deaths violate the federal Animal Welfare Act. He
asked the FDA to launch an investigation and issue the maximum fine against
the university.
"Failure to protect these animals from temperature extremes is sheer
negligence," he wrote in the complaint.
Budkie alleged in the complaint that temperatures reached 93 degrees the day
the monkeys died.
The university has been fined in the past by the USDA after investigations
into the research center. In 2013, the university paid a $38,571 penalty
over the deaths of three primates and another unrelated incident.
In 2010, the center agreed to pay $18,000 as part of a settlement after the
Humane Society of the United States released undercover video footage that
it said constituted inhumane and improper treatment of animals.