Going Back to School Is Hell for Animals

While students head back to classrooms and lecture halls this year, animals are still being abused and tortured in the name of science—and often on the taxpayer’s dime. Learn about some of the horrors being carried out in the name of research, and then take the actions below to help these animals.

• The University of Washington’s Fritzie Arce-McShane violated her own experimental protocol by repeatedly irradiating an elderly monkey and chose not to keep his protective goggles in place. The monkey developed severe radiation poisoning: facial swelling, cracked and peeling skin, and an inability to open his mouth. The damage was so extreme that he was euthanized to end his suffering.
  
  Take action by personally emailing decision-makers at the University of Washington to call for the immediate closure of the lab.

Feel free to use our sample letter, but remember that using your own words is always more effective.

• Bio Corporation drowned birds, injected crayfish with chemicals, and reportedly froze turtles to death. The bodies of these animals were then sold to schools for classroom dissection. Fortunately, TeachKind Science provides non-animal dissection resources to teachers for one school year as a replacement for the dissections their course would usually include.
  
  Urge your local school district to stop cutting up dead bodies and use superior and humane teaching methods instead. Cruelty-free, state-of-the-art materials are provided to teachers for free through TeachKind Science’s dissection pilot program!

• Bird killer Christine Lattin uses wild-caught songbirds in her cruel experiments: she captures panicked sparrows and imprisons them in barren cages, places foreign objects such as cocktail umbrellas near their food, and watches to see whether fear will give way to hunger. In earlier experiments, Lattin put birds in cloth bags, disoriented and terrified them by rolling them around in a car, and restrained them for 30 minutes at a time, four times a day. Some birds were fed crude oil, and others’ legs were wounded without any pain relief. After weeks and sometimes months of repeated abuse, they were killed.
  
  LSU should never again green-light this suffering—text FLY to 73822* to urge LSU to stop these experiments on songbirds (standard messaging rates apply; you may receive recurring texts—reply STOP to end).

• Students enrolled in Utah State University‘s course, Analysis of Behavior: Advanced (PSY 3400), are required to take part in animal experimentation. Each semester, students are forced to lock rats inside barren boxes, where they’re blasted with bursts of bright light while being trained to push a lever to receive food pellets. In the past, the university has used an “online rat simulator” for this course, and with several engaging, effective, and cost-efficient non-animal simulators available on the market to help students achieve the course objectives of PSY 3400, there is no excuse for USU to continue tormenting rats.

Thank you for your compassion for animals.