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Step Up or Step Aside: Judge Gives DA Deadline to Act on Behalf of Monkeys
A circuit court judge has set a deadline for the local district attorney in Madison, Wisconsin, to decide whether he will finally act to save a long-suffering monkey from continued cruelty that PETA exposed at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center (WNPRC).
A court has ruled that Ismael Ozanne, the Dane County district attorney, has 60 days to say whether his office will act on PETA’s request to intervene on behalf of Cornelius, a 12-year-old rhesus macaque.
In May 2021, PETA asked Ozanne to step in on behalf of Cornelius, and in August 2021, we asked that he also intervene on behalf of an aged monkey named Princess. However, after nearly a year, Cornelius and Princess remained imprisoned at WNPRC and no charges had been filed. So PETA took the fight to the courts. We asked for the appointment of a special prosecutor and that a criminal complaint be issued against WNPRC. We argued that there is probable cause to believe that one or more WNPRC employees’ cruel treatment of Princess and Cornelius constituted a crime, as did their failure to provide adequate shelter to maintain the monkeys in good health. While Wisconsin’s anti-cruelty statutes exempt the use of animals in experimentation, Princess and Cornelius endured cruel conditions of confinement, not as part of a bona fide experiment but during times when they were simply part of WNPRC’s breeding colony, meaning that the mistreatment is covered by Wisconsin’s laws.
Now, Ozanne must tell the court, in writing, whether he will take action.
PETA has reason to believe that the treatment of Cornelius violates Wisconsin’s cruelty-to-animals laws, following our six-month 2020 undercover investigation into WNPRC, which revealed damning evidence that both Cornelius and Princess have been mistreated and exhibited symptoms of prolonged physical and psychological suffering.
The monkeys have spent their entire lives locked in small, barren laboratory cages, often in solitary confinement. During the investigation, Cornelius was routinely found hunched over or with his face pressed against cage bars. As one supervisor said, staff are “not supposed to say” that monkeys “look depressed” but admitted that they absolutely do. Princess had torn out much of her hair—a form of self-mutilation indicative of extreme psychological distress.
Sadly, only Cornelius can be saved now, as 18-year-old Princess has died during our fight to save her. In November 2021, Princess was impregnated and then infected with the Zika virus. In early December, she was killed and her fetus was removed from her body for analysis.
PETA seeks the prosecution of culpable WNPRC personnel for alleged crimes against animals and the release of Cornelius to a reputable sanctuary, where he can experience sun on his back, fresh air, and space to climb for the first time in his life.
What You Can Do
Please take a minute today to join nearly 90,000 PETA supporters who have already taken action to advocate for Cornelius’ freedom.
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Court Orders LSU to Pay PETA $73K in Bird Experiment Case
The 19th Judicial District Court for the Parish of East Baton Rouge has just ordered Louisiana State University (LSU) to pay $73,501.27 in attorney’s fees and costs to PETA, which incurred the expenses during its successful lawsuit seeking public records related to LSU experimenter Christine Lattin’s taxpayer-funded experiments on sparrows.
PETA filed the lawsuit in December 2020 after the school refused to release public documents, including veterinary-care records and videos recorded by Lattin, whose experiments involve trapping sparrows, pumping them with sex hormones, exposing them to terrifying calls from predators, and then killing them. After PETA filed the lawsuit, LSU provided the group with just some of the documents. In January 2022, the court ordered LSU to release them all.
“This court recognizes the importance of Louisiana public records law, which LSU has attempted to evade,” says PETA Foundation General Counsel Lori Kettler. “The public has the right to know how its funds are spent by public institutions. LSU must not be allowed to hide its atrocities.”
In recent years, Lattin has tested birds’ fear of unfamiliar objects (“neophobia”) by withholding food from them for up to 15 hours and then putting random items—such as blinking lights, yellow pipe cleaners, and a blue cocktail umbrella—near their food dishes to see how readily the birds would approach. Lattin then killed them and examined their brains.
PETA along with local counsel—Alysson Mills and Kristen Amond of Mills & Amond LLP—filed the lawsuit against the LSU Board of Supervisors and Thomas Galligan, individually and in his capacity as then-president of LSU, as the school’s designated records custodian under Louisiana law.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org; follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram; or click here.
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Video: New Mom Shares Tips on How to Bond Baby and Dogs
How do I introduce my dog to my new baby? How do I make sure my dog feels loved when I bring my new baby home? These are the top two questions PETA hears from expecting parents, so in a new video released today, PETA staffer Moira Colley shares how she successfully introduced her newborn, Violet, to her adopted dogs, Cashew and Teddy—and now, the trio have bonded. Teddy even considers himself Violet’s protector and rushes to alert Colley and her partner, Sam, every time Violet cries.
More photos of the Colley family are available here.
Colley’s top tips include the following.
- Start early: Before she’d even given birth, Colley played recordings of babies crying and took Cashew and Teddy to the park to acclimate them to kids.
- Encourage smelling: Once Colley brought Violet home, she encouraged the dogs to sniff the baby’s hospital blanket.
- Provide quality time: Colley made sure the dogs didn’t feel neglected or replaced when Violet arrived—she kept them to the routine they were used to (as best she could!) and carved out one-on-one time to spend with them so they knew they were still safe, loved, and prioritized.
- Give personal space: Colley arranged a special space in the house for Violet to play away from the dogs.
- Allow a two-way street: Colley is now helping Violet practice her petting technique on stuffed animals so she learns to be gentle.
Colley says that maintaining a consistent schedule, a positive outlook, and a self-assured demeanor—since both babies and dogs take their cues on how to feel from us—were the keys to the successful integration. Now, she proudly reports that Violet, Teddy, and Cashew are tightly bonded, and Teddy (the more protective of the pair) always chooses to sit next to Violet, give her endless kisses, and keep guard over her bassinet. Additional tips on ways to introduce animal companions to babies are available here.
“Because of Teddy and Cashew, Violet is going to grow up with a love, respect, and deep appreciation for animals,” Colley says in the video. “Our hope is that as she gets older, this relationship they built will inspire her to advocate for animals just like her mom.”
Colley adopted Cashew and Teddy in 2017 after the bonded pair was left at a shelter by a puppy mill owner who deemed them “unsellable” because they suffered from hip dysplasia and alopecia, respectively.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
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RZA’s Vegan Plea to Hit Airwaves Ahead of Wu-Tang Concert
Compassion rules everything around me: At least, that’s the case for rapper RZA, whose kind, pro-vegan plea is hitting local TV airwaves ahead of Wu-Tang Clan’s concert at the Xfinity Theater. Airing Monday, the public service announcement (PSA) shows the longtime vegan morphing into different men, women, and animals while proclaiming, “We are all the same in all the ways that matter.”
It’s a message that’s apparently spilled over to the rest of Wu-Tang. An impressive 80% of its members are now vegan, inspired by RZA’s fight against speciesism—the damaging belief that all other animals are inferior to humans.
“Saving animals, the planet, and your own arteries: Can it be all so simple? For those who go vegan like RZA, the answer is yes,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange. “Now that RZA has persuaded most of his Wu-Tang mates to protect animals, PETA is urging fans to follow suit and help build a better tomorrow.”
Animals feel pain and joy and aim for self-preservation, just as humans do, yet billions are needlessly tormented and killed every year for food, clothing, cosmetics, and other human products. Each person who goes vegan can expect to save nearly 200 animals annually; reduce their risk of suffering from cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity; and slash greenhouse gas emissions.
Wu-Tang member Masta Killa previously starred in his own PETA PSA promoting kind foods. He and RZA join a long list of celebrities—including Jermaine Dupri, Eve, Pink, Taraji P. Henson, and Paul McCartney—to team up with PETA to promote kindness to animals.
The ad will air during FOX game show Beat Shazam between 9 and 10 p.m.
PETA’s motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat or abuse in any other way.” For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
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