The road to “euthanasia” was a long one for sick, injured, diseased, and dying rats and mice at UNC. Even though PETA’s investigator was informed by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC—the body of reviewers that approves animal experiments) that death should never be used as an “endpoint,” that is exactly what happened in many cases in which animals were reported in poor physical condition.

• A rat suffering from paralysis from the neck down was reported by PETA’s investigator on a Friday and examined by the head veterinarian (who had the authority to euthanize the animal without the researcher’s permission) on both Saturday and Sunday. He left the rat to suffer, saying that he was waiting to hear back from the researcher and that the rat would probably have to “hang in there.” Our investigator found the same rat dead in the cage on Monday.
  
  
• A mouse with a distended belly was recommended for euthanasia by a vet tech and a veterinarian who had the authority to euthanize on the spot. Repeated calls to the researcher’s office seeking permission to euthanize the animal went unanswered. The researcher’s indifference to the plight of this mouse, coupled with the veterinarian’s pandering and deference to the researcher, resulted in six additional days of suffering for the mouse after having first been reported by our investigator.
  
  
• If animals in need of veterinary care or euthanasia were expensive “knock-out” mice, they often were not euthanized when they should have been because of their cost. In addition, PETA’s investigator observed that if the animal’s condition was not considered “detrimental” to the outcome of study, the animal usually went untreated, with researcher staff often taking the “let’s wait and see” approach.

Rats and mice who were pregnant or suffering from the effects of a study (severe weight loss, chronic diarrhea, bloody tumors and lesions, etc.) were often denied euthanasia simply because the babies had yet to be “harvested” and/or the study completed. As a result, many animals suffered agonizingly slow and painful deaths.

• A pregnant yet severely emaciated mouse was left overnight with a newborn mouse lodged in her vagina despite being described by one research technician as looking “really bad.” She was able to deliver the baby mouse (found dead in the cage the next morning) but suffered several more days before finally being euthanized.
  
  
• A rat suffered 25 days with a discolored and enlarged abscess because it was thought that she was pregnant—she was put out of her misery only after the staff realized that she was not, in fact, pregnant.

Sick, injured, diseased, and dying rats at UNC also suffered because researchers and their staff were not concerned or available or were just too busy to be bothered.

• Mice with implants breaking through their skin and rats with “huge sores” and “oozing scabs” around the devices implanted in their skulls were considered “normal.”
  
  
• Research staff who were contacted about animals in urgent need of veterinary care or euthanasia routinely informed animal care or veterinary technicians that the person responsible was “away,” one laboratory telling our investigator that the person in charge would “be back in a few days,” implying that nothing could be done until the person’s return.
  
  
• Some laboratories expressed irritation and outright hostility at being contacted by animal care technicians regarding the welfare of their animals. A research assistant from a laboratory with sick and dying animals stated to our investigator: “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but it is very disruptive when you call us every day.” She insisted that she not be contacted, even when animals were dying.
  
  
• The following is an excerpt from the investigator’s log notes: “Two weeks ago, Mike told me not to report one of Sulik’s mice, who is hunched over [an indicator of pain], lethargic, and old. The next week, Barbara, the vet tech, told me to report the mouse, and she recommended euthanasia, but Sulik’s lab has ignored the recommendation. Today, the mouse was dying—unable to move, emaciated, hunched … miserable. If I had been allowed to report this immediately, and the investigators had followed the vet tech’s advice, this mouse would not have suffered for the last two weeks.”