Updates: Campaign to Shut Down University of Washington’s Primate Center

For nearly 60 years, the failing, archaic, disease-ridden Washington National Primate Research Center (WaNPRC) at the University of Washington has tormented thousands of monkeys in painful experiments that have failed to improve human health. PETA is calling for the immediate closure of the facility—and you can help.

PETA Unfurls Massive Banner Calling For Shutdown of University of Washington’s Primate Center

November 12, 2020

PETA’s bold 30-foot-long banner urging the University of Washington to shut down its cruel primate center grabbed the attention of passing motorists from overpasses in Seattle. The banner featured the face of a monkey just like the tens of thousands who have been imprisoned and tormented in cruel experiments at the facility.

Footage Reveals ‘Dread, Despair, and Disease’ for Monkeys at Washington National Primate Research Center

November 12, 2020

Obtained via a public records request, never-before-seen footage released by PETA shows profoundly distressed monkeys pacing endlessly inside barren steel cages in dark and mostly underground rooms on the University of Washington’s campus and in a concrete building in downtown Seattle. Nearly 60 years of experiments on monkeys at the Washington National Primate Research Center on the UW campus have failed to produce any significant medical advances.

**PETA Denounces Failing, Archaic, Disease-Ridden WaNPRC in Seattle Times Ad**

November 7, 2020

In an arresting full-page ad in The Seattle Times, PETA exposes failures at the University of Washington’s primate center: “Public records show that the primate center is deep in debt, is hemorrhaging scientists and other staff, and, by its own admission, is unable to keep the monkeys healthy … Monkeys have died from strangulation, starvation, dehydration, choking on their own vomit, bleeding to death, and being mauled by other stressed animals.”

PETA Files Complaint With Feds Alleging Violations of Federal Animal Welfare Laws, Conflicts of Interest

September 2, 2020

PETA has submitted a formal complaint to the U.S. Department of Agriculture after uncovering evidence of Animal Welfare Act violations at the University of Washington’s primate center. It also alleges serious conflicts of interest on the university’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, which is responsible for ensuring compliance with all animal protection laws in the institution’s laboratories. Read more.

PETA Exposes Incompetence and Negligence at the WaNPRC

June 25, 2020

In just the latest example of incompetence and negligence at the WaNPRC, a monkey imprisoned at the facility was somehow left locked in a trapping run. Two staff members noticed that the animal was missing but didn’t bother reporting the incident. The monkey went without food and water for as long as two days. Read more.

PETA Demands That the WaNPRC Be Transparent About COVID-19 in Workers and Monkeys

March 31, 2020

Humans aren’t the only primates who can be infected with the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. That’s why PETA is calling on the WaNPRC to suspend all experiments and to provide documentation that the 1,200 monkeys housed there, as well as its staff, have not been exposed to or infected with the virus. Because the virus affects monkeys differently from humans, they are not good “models” for studying the human form of the disease—and if any of the monkeys are infected, future studies involving them would be compromised. Read more.

*****