Their deaths and suffering reflect a multi-year pattern of abuse, neglect and incompetence at UC Berkeley, said Michael Budkie, executive director of Stop Animal Exploitation Now.
NANETTE ASIMOV: ‘Cruelty and neglect by UC Berkeley animal researchers led to the deaths of 22 animals from starvation, suffocation or botched surgeries, and to the suffering of countless others from 2015 to 2017 that received too little pain medication or simply weren’t fed, watered or monitored, according to correspondence acquired by an animal-rights group. The animals include three monkeys, as well bats, rats, mice and chicks.
Their deaths and suffering reflect a “multi-year pattern of abuse, neglect and incompetence” at UC Berkeley, Michael Budkie, executive director of Stop Animal Exploitation Now [SAEN] wrote Chancellor Carol Christ on Tuesday. The problems occurred despite an $8,750 fine imposed in 2014 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture after UC Berkeley researchers failed to give five voles any water for five days. The long-tailed rodents all died of thirst. The animal-rights group called on Christ to conduct an independent investigation of animal experimentation practices on the campus… The USDA found additional errors during three inspections of the animal labs in 2016 and 2017…
In January 2016, McKee reported, five mice died after researchers gave them no food for at least 72 hours; two mice died a day later, also of apparent starvation… In August 2015, one chick died and two others had to be euthanized after an inadequately trained researcher performed eight eye operations on the chicks… Four bats suffocated in March 2016 after a researcher placed too many bats in a cage… In June, lab staff had to amputate the toe of a 10-year-old Rhesus macaque monkey… That was the second incident involving a primate since February 2016, when a researcher… deprived two monkeys of water for at least 24 hours’. SOURCE…
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