Animal Activists Protest Conditions At Primate Lab
The Capital Times :: METRO :: 4B
Thursday, June 10, 2004
By Aaron Nathans The Capital Times
Post-mortem reports on animals at the Wisconsin
National Primate Research Center show they lived in a stressful
environment, an animal rights group argues.
Animal rights activists are protesting the meeting of
the American Association of Primatologists, which convened in Madison
this week. They staged a mock vivisection outside the research center on
Wednesday.
"The data you get from stressed primates is not
accurate," said protester Lori Nitzel, who did not associate herself
with a particular group. "They couldn't even represent their own
species."
The group Stop Animal Exploitation Now seized on a
progress report issued by the National Institutes of Health that showed
157 primates died between May 2002 and April 2003 at the research
center. Of those that died, five engaged in self-mutilation, according
to the group.
Fifty-four percent of the macaques who died had
gastrointestinal tract diseases, and 64 percent of the marmosets showed
similar conditions, the report said.
Twenty-three primates were very thin at death, the
group said.
Joseph Kemnitz, director of the research center, said
he did not believe the group's report revealed anything alarming.
"I do not believe our animals are unduly stressed. I
think, in certain situations, however, animals are stressed, perhaps by
social interactions and their group living situations," he said. "That
stress is minimized."
Gastroenteritis can have many causes, like infections,
he said. "To say that it's stress is quite non-specific," Kemnitz said.
Stress occurs in the wild, too, he said.
"Those behaviors that are unusual in our colony are
probably not due to the conditions of captivity, but rather are more
typical of the species," he said.
"Those behaviors that are unusual in our colony are
probably not due to the conditions of captivity, but rather are more
typical of the species," he said.