Photo Op: PETA Supporters in Giant Monkey Masks to Protest UW Primate Center at New Student Convocation
For Immediate Release:
September 18, 2025
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
As the University of Washington (UW) greets many of the 12,000 freshmen arriving for new student convocation on Sunday, a troop of PETA supporters in giant monkey masks will host an educational event of their own outside Alaska Airlines Arena.
The oversized masks depict the three macaque monkey species, two of which are endangered, used for experiments at UW’s cruel Washington National Primate Research Center. PETA supporters will also play a video from inside the facility to show new students and their families exactly what their tuition and tax dollars pay for: a violation-plagued operation located underground and in a building connected to the UW Medical Center.
Monkeys have starved to death, been mauled by other stressed monkeys, choked on their own vomit, had their limbs mangled, and died from uncontrolled diarrheal diseases at UW’s center. Within the last year, its director was demoted, a monkey was irradiated nearly to death when an experimenter deviated from the approved protocol, and unintended diseases circulated among the monkeys at UW’s Arizona breeding colony.
“New UW students need to see the horror happening just beneath their campus where monkeys are caged, cut into, and discarded,” says PETA Senior Science Advisor Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel. “Monkeys suffer while the university clings to failed experiments—this laboratory must go.”
Where: Outside Alaska Airlines Arena, University of Washington, 3870 Montlake Blvd. N.E., Seattle
When: Sunday, September 21, 10 a.m.
Interviews will be available on-site and remotely.
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.
