Davis "Monkey Farm" Wants Expansion

The University of California Davis has proposed an expansion of the California National Primate Research Center, popularly known as the "Monkey Farm" located on the UCD campus. The expansion would cost over 7.8 million in taxpayer dollars, and include five new facilities for experimentation on nonhuman primates and other animals. The Primate Center is listed the fourth worst laboratory in the United States by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA. UC-Davis subjects more primates to painful and distressing experiments than any other U.S. university: More than 2,000 primates were used there in 2004. In addition to this unparalleled exploitation of primates, more than 500 dogs, 400 cats, 450 rabbits, and 250 horses were used in painful or distressing experiments at UC-Davis in 2004.

In Febuary 2002, a monkey was killed by a propeller. In 2004, seven long-tailed Macaque research monkeys were killed when they were left in a 175 degree room for hours. In 2006, Cheri Stevens, a former employee of the center, testified that primate center technicians intentionally malnourish, euthanize and mistreat the approximately 4,700 monkeys at the center, and even that one worker had trained a monkey to masturbate

It is clear that the center is sadistic, unscientific, and immoral. We urge the UC regents to vote no on the expansion.