For Immediate Release:
February 6, 2023
Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382
Amherst, Mass. – The University of Massachusetts–Amherst (UMass) is seeking help designing a university seal without the racist implications of its current design but which reflects the school’s “essence and values.” So today, PETA and a UMass alum submitted a logo design that represents the speciesism alive and well there.
Featuring an image of a distressed marmoset threatened by a syringe-holding hand, the design illustrates the school’s support for notorious and painful “marmoset menopause” experiments. Not only do these experiments tell us nothing about humans, they also further the speciesist idea that other animals exist only for our own benefit and that exploiting them as lab tools is somehow acceptable—something UMass appears to embrace wholeheartedly.
“UMass says it wants to move past its bigoted history, but it’s failing as long as it condones and conducts experiments on nonconsenting animals,” says PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo. “Until UMass modernizes its research program, both ethically and scientifically, the seal suggested by PETA and the UMass alum will provide an accurate representation of the university’s values.”
At UMass, experimenters drill into marmosets’ skulls and implant electrodes, cut open their necks to expose muscle, and thread electrode leads from the scalp and neck to the abdomen. To mimic menopausal hot flashes, experimenters cut out the animals’ ovaries and heat the marmosets with hand warmers. UMass’ history of animal welfare violations includes severely burning an animal with hand warmers as he was recovering from surgery, failing to alert an attending veterinarian to sick animals, and permitting a monkey to escape, then injuring the animal’s tail during recapture.
PETA’s motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on.” For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
