PETA Releases Video Footage That Primate Experimenter Fought to Hide

After a two-year open-records fight followed by a lawsuit, PETA released video footage obtained from the University of Massachusetts–Amherst (UMass) showing monkeys filmed by experimenters at four national primate research centers. The 40 hours of footage that UMass released in a legal settlement show deeply distressed monkeys housed in small metal cages, pacing endlessly, tearing out their hair, and even poking their thumbs into their own eye sockets. UMass experimenter Melinda Novak received more than $10 million in taxpayer funds to study how and why monkeys mutilate themselves in laboratories. After more than 30 years of conducting these hideous experiments, she suddenly retired after PETA’s lawsuit was filed.