UC-Davis Students Working Overtime to Shutter Primate Center

UC-Davis Students Revolt Against Monkey Torment at Primate Center

Student activists at the University of California–Davis (UC-Davis) protesting the California National Primate Research Center (CNPRC).

UC-Davis activists from Students Opposing Speciesism (SOS) have rallied, petitioned, and forced change at the university by refusing to remain silent while their school torments monkeys. Their passion spilled out into the streets in a raucous May 20, 2022, demonstration demanding the closure of the CNPRC and an end to monkey experimentation.

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Getting the Message Out in the Media

UC-Davis SOS members have also made use of university media to get the message out about the horrors that monkeys endure at the CNPRC. In an impassioned letter published in The California Aggie, the UC-Davis student newspaper, members of SOS laid out plainly why the CNPRC must be shut down:

Experimenters have cut open monkeys’ skulls and severed part of their spinal cords—even though these kinds of experiments haven’t been useful for humans. They tear terrified babies away from their mothers to study the impact of early-life stress on the regulation of hormones. Macaques are purposely kept thirsty to compel them to comply with experimenters in exchange for a few drops of water or juice. And that is just a small fraction of the horror that goes on at the CNPRC.

Popcorn the monkey at California National Primate Research Center at the University of California — Human-relevant methods to study nerve injury already exist, but experimenters at the California National Primate Research Center cut part of this monkey’s spinal cord to impair movement in his right hand.

Human-relevant methods to study nerve injury already exist, but experimenters at the California National Primate Research Center cut part of this monkey’s spinal cord to impair movement in his right hand.

Securing an Important Legislative Victory!

SOS activists were also successful in pressuring the student senate to pass an important resolution that not only calls for the closure of the CNPRC but also formally recognizes animals as sentient.

In support of its position, the lengthy and detailed resolution ticks off a laundry list of horrible violations of public trust as well as numerous violations of animal welfare laws and the CNPRC’s abundant lack of transparency. The strongly worded, five-page resolution was passed by a unanimous vote in April 2022.

“The Associated Students of the University of California, urges the university to explore modern, alternative research methods and follow the precedent set forth by other world-renowned research institutions by promptly eliminating the use of non-human animal testing at the CNPRC,” the resolution says.

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Tell the University’s Chancellor to Shut This Lab Down Now!

UC-Davis Students Want to Shut Down Monkey Lab. Help Them!

Take Action for Monkeys

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Message

Right now, approximately 5,000 primates are suffering at the California National Primate Research Center (CNPRC) on the University of California–Davis campus. Some monkeys are deliberately kept thirsty to compel them to comply with experimenters in exchange for a few drops of water, while others have been forced to inhale toxic or harmful substances, such as smoke from tobacco and e-cigarette vaping.

In one study, macaques were infected with SIV, a primate virus that has failed to be a surrogate model for HIV infection, leading to severe and painful symptoms, including weight loss, tremors, and skin lesions. They were all killed and dissected.

The students on your campus—whose tuition fees are likely used, without their consent, to help fund these experimenters—do not approve of these violent, archaic acts of extreme cruelty and have petitioned to get the primate experiments shut down.

Humane research methods provide much more accurate and human-relevant results. UC-Davis must transform the CNPRC into a scientific center that’s dedicated to using modern, animal-free research methods. Taxpayer dollars and student tuition shouldn’t be used to fund cruelty to animals.

Please, stop allowing painful and archaic animal experiments to take place on your campus.

Thank you for your consideration.

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