ARF Brings it Home to Stanford Labs

Animal Rights on the Farm (ARF) continued its campaign against Stanford University's animal experiments with a demonstration on Friday, February 10 at the University’s Research Animal Facility (RAF). Stanford undergraduates, law students, and graduate students converged on the RAF to voice their opposition to Stanford’s experiments involving dogs, primates, mice, and numerous other animals.

ARF seeks increased transparency and accountability for experiments at Stanford, since the private university is not subject to the California Public Records Act or the Freedom of Information Act. ARF also calls on the University to begin its shift to more humane alternatives by eliminating what it considers the worst experiments, such as cocaine research on adolescent squirrel monkeys (http://tinyurl.com/7ogua), maternal deprivation research on infant squirrel monkeys (http://tinyurl.com/cyovj and http://tinyurl.com/c9vpa), and sleep deprivation research on monkeys, rats, and mice (http://tinyurl.com/7clon).

Although Stanford will not disclose the number of animals it uses, an article in the Stanford Daily from September 2003 puts the number at 109,000. A report filed by Stanford with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2002 shows the University used 32 dogs, 172 hamsters, 376 rabbits, 323 nonhuman primates, 110 sheep, 541 pigs, 2 goats, 9 ferrets and 471 gerbils (http://www.all-creatures.org/saen/res-fr-ca-su-aphis-2002.html). Because of reporting exceptions for mice, rats, birds, and amphibians, Stanford is not required to report to the government the tens of thousands of those animals that it uses.

ARF’s past protests have taken place on the busy street bordering campus, and have targeted large events like Alumni Weekend and the Dalai Lama’s campus visit. This time, ARF took it directly to the facility. Standing outside the RAF, they held signs, chanted, and distributed flyers about vivisection at Stanford.

“I think this protest really hit home,” said ARF president Claire Wagenseil. “There was a lot of foot traffic, and almost everyone in the area was part of the Stanford scientific community. You could tell that what we were doing affected them and took them out of their daily routine."

Stanford had a significant police presence at the protest, as it has at past campus animal rights events. Activists counted approximately twenty police and security officers already present at the RAF when they arrived. The officers jumped into action as soon as ARF members approached the RAF. They blocked the parking structure with a van, while numerous other officers blocked the entrance to the RAF and stationed themselves throughout the parking lot.

During the course of the protest one man, who was wearing an earpiece, took hundreds of photos of the activists using a telescopic photo lens. When approached by one ARF member, he said he was a freelance journalist. The activists later saw him milling about with the police officers, and then watched him leave the protest driving a Stanford “Community Service” truck.

“We’re obviously disappointed by the way Stanford deals with political expression on campus,” said Stanford Law School student and ARF member Matthew Liebman. “It’s bad enough that they send two dozen officers to cover a peaceful protest, but the dishonesty involved in an investigator lying about his surveillance is really shameful.”

The demonstration lasted about an hour, and ended with the activists chanting, “We’ll be back!”

In addition to continuing their protests at the RAF and in the Stanford community, ARF will participate in this spring’s World Week for Animals in Laboratories, an international week of activism against animal research. They are planning speeches, film screenings, and protests.

See also http://www.stanforddaily.com/tempo?page=content&id=19380&repository=0001_article#