UMass Experimenter Sought to Destroy Damning Records of Monkey Torment

For Immediate Release:
August 11, 2025

Contact:
Brandi Pharris 202-483-7382

A PETA lawsuit win may have expedited the closure of Agnès Lacreuse’s marmoset laboratory at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (UMass), and today, PETA releases new evidence showing the lengths the experimenter went to to keep the public in the dark.

PETA filed a lawsuit in 2022 to obtain records related to Lacreuse’s experiments. It was settled in PETA’s favor earlier this year, and UMass turned over all requested documentation and paid PETA $50,000 in partial compensation for legal fees.

The laboratory closed not long after PETA received the documentation, but before videos taken inside the laboratory were due to be turned over later this year.

In the hundreds of pages of documents, PETA discovered multiple examples of Lacreuse directing others to delete photos, videos, and other files. She and other workers also discuss how to circumvent records requests. For example, regarding videos, Lacreuse writes, “[I]t is what PETA is after so … I would suggest to destroy them and definitely NOT sending [sic] them to me.”

“It’s suspiciously coincidental that UMass closed this awful laboratory just after a court forced it to give PETA damning public documents showing that Lacreuse attempted to collude to keep the public in the dark about her experiments,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “We will soon receive videos of the experiments and will see what else she may have tried to hide.”

In another correspondence, a student and former laboratory worker suggests staging new photos to share with colleagues and deleting anything too realistic: “Since PETA is an issue and I want the photos to be very sensitive to this, I was thinking of a … photo of us holding the marmoset (pretending to do thermal imaging?) and getting a portrait photo of them looking calm. Agnès said any photos that don’t look good will need to be deleted so I will make sure to do this.”

A marmoset imprisoned in Lacreuse’s laboratory. Image obtained through public records law by PETA.

In nature, marmosets live in cooperative groups high up in the canopies of rainforests, where they groom each other, huddle affectionately, share food, and care for their babies. In Lacreuse’s laboratory, workers drilled holes in marmosets’ skulls, implanted electrodes in their brains, cut into their necks, and threaded wires through their bodies. When Lacreuse finished with them, they were killed and dissected.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.