ACTION ALERT:
Dr. Roxanne Mullaney, 9/25/23
Deputy Administrator, Animal Care, USDA/APHIS/AC
[email protected]
[email protected]
Please launch a full investigation of the UC Davis incident which cooked a primate to death in a heated van. This horrific death must not go unpunished!
'Incompetent' university lab staff accused of 'cooking monkey to death' in hot van
From DailyStar.co.uk, September 19, 2023
Laboratory staff at the University of California, Davis killed one of
their monkeys when they left it inside a van for more than an hour as 54C
hot air was blasted into its cage, a report has claime
University staff have been slammed as "incompetent" and accused of illegally
killing a monkey by "literally cooking the animal to death".
Animal rights organisation Stop Animal Exploitation NOW! (SAEN) have called for a federal investigation following an external review into the death of monkey being transported by University of California, Davis' (UDC) laboratory workers on May 12. The review found that the monkey died after it was left inside a van for more than an hour as a heater blasted 130F (54C) hot air "directly" into its cage.
According to the review, UCD staff were taking two rhesus macaque monkeys
from the California National Primate Research Center (CNPRC) to a secondary
facility for an experiment and loaded them into the van between 8 and
8.15am. Despite the temperature outside being mild that day, the
fact-finding review discovered it was around this time that staff members
transporting the animals turned on a forced air heating unit mounted above
the monkey's steel cages inside the van, which meant "continuously heated
air" was blown straight into the cages.
When they arrived at the facility, one monkey was left behind as the other
was taken inside for a procedure. Staff members interviewed for the report
said the monkey left inside the van was last observed between 8.45am and 9am
but then went unobserved in the hot vehicle for somewhere between 50 to 90
minutes.
When staff finally returned to the van, they found the monkey in a comatose
state, with the animal's body temperature measuring an extremely heightened
40.3C even after 30 to 40 minutes of cooling efforts. When the monkey
started experiencing seizures vets decided to euthanise it.
A necropsy found the animal had sustained "extensive" lesions on all its
organ systems and died from "acute severe hyperthermia leading to
euthanasia." In response to the external review, Stop Animal Exploitation
Now (SAEN), an animal rights nonprofit with a mission to end animal
experimentation, has called for all staff responsible for the death to be
fired as they claim the monkey was "cooked to death."
In a letter to the UCD chancellor, SAEN Executive Director Michael Budkie
wrote: "I am writing to you today to insist that you terminate the staff
responsible for killing a monkey by literally cooking this animal to death"
He also filed a complaint with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA),
calling for a full federal investigation into the incident.
According to the external review, staff had said the monkey "appeared not
to be in distress" when they last saw it. Budkie however said: "I do not
find this statement to be credible. If I was in an enclosed space and was
subjected to 130-degree forced air for at least half an hour I am quite
certain I would be in distress."
In August 2004, the university was handed a $4,815 fine over the death of
seven primates as well as a citation for the death of 19 primates in 2009
and 2010, the Davis Vanguard reports. According to a UCD report, the deaths
in 2004 were due to a similar incident to the most recent death, when a
mechanical failure led to the overheating of the room the animals were being
housed in.
Executive Director Budkie urged the USDA to take "severe action",
writing: "The incompetence of UCD staff is clear and uncontroverted. Who in
their right mind would think it would be acceptable to blow 130-degree air
on a primate in an enclosed area for as much as two and a quarter hours?
Anyone so utterly oblivious to the actual welfare of these monkeys should
never be permitted to work with them again."
UCD and the California National Primate Research Center have been approached
for comment.