Johns Hopkins’ Owl Experimenter Will Face Home Protest

PETA to Demand That Shreesh Mysore End Cruel, Deadly Brain Tests on Barn Owls

For Immediate Release:
June 24, 2020

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

The signs will read, “Shreesh Mysore Scrambles Owls’ Brains,” as PETA protesters gather outside the home of Mysore—the much-criticized Johns Hopkins University (JHU) experimenter—on Thursday to hold a socially distanced protest over the gruesome, wasteful, and deadly brain experiments he conducts on barn owls.

When:    Thursday, June 25, 12 noon

Where:    Outside Mysore’s home, Towson

In his experiments, Mysore cuts into owls’ skulls, inserts electrodes into their brains, and holds the birds fast in an “experimental rig” in which they’re unable to move even one wing. He records their brain activity while forcing them to watch dots on a TV monitor or exposing them to bursts of noise through earphones. Funded by JHU and taxpayers to the tune of more than $2.5 million, Mysore will use 50 to 60 barn owls in the current set of painful experiments—including six birds used simply for surgical practice for his staff. All the owls will be killed at the end of the tests.

“Mysore can go home at the end of the day, while the tormented owls stay caged in a barren, fluorescent-lit cinderblock laboratory, their brains cut open and damaged,” says PETA neuroscientist Dr. Katherine Roe. “PETA wants Johns Hopkins University to end these indefensible experiments and release the surviving owls to sanctuaries now.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.