PETA Urges State to Confiscate Illegally-Held Robins From CSU Experimenter

After His License Is Yanked, Bird Experimenter Enlists Another Animal Tormenter to Trap Birds for His Deadly Experiments; PETA Urges State to Seize Birds

For Immediate Release:
June 24, 2019

Contact:
Tasgola Bruner 202-483-7382

This morning, PETA sent a letter urging Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) to seize robins who were trapped by Colorado State University (CSU) experimenter Gregory Ebel to be used in deadly West Nile virus experiments in which he infects birds with the virus, kills them, and dissects their bodies.

In April, CPW confirmed PETA’s allegations that Ebel had trapped birds in 2018 without the required state license. The agency cited and fined him and suspended his 2019 license. Because the license that he used to trap 32 robins in February 2019 has been rescinded, those birds are currently being held in his laboratory unlawfully.

“Ebel broke the law last year when he captured dozens of crows to sicken and kill in his worthless experiments, and he violated ethical standards when he trapped dozens of robins earlier this year,” says PETA Vice President Dr. Alka Chandna. “PETA is calling on wildlife officials to seize these birds and take them to a wildlife rehabilitation center, where they can live free from harassment by this unscrupulous experimenter.”

Although CPW suspended Ebel’s license, it has also allowed him to skirt the law by using a colleague’s licenses to trap birds for deadly West Nile experiments. This year, Ebel plans to trap crows and robins for his experiments under a license secured by Richard Bowen, another animal experimenter. Bowen’s license indicates that he will also trap 40 blackbirds, 40 fox squirrels, 40 deer mice, and 20 cottontail rabbits for painful and deadly infectious disease experiments.

To help alert the public about Ebel’s experiments, PETA is running an ad during The Bachelorette this week that depicts a teddy bear being taken to a laboratory, where he’s strapped down, injected with chemicals, cut open, and thrown away—which is what real animals endure every day in laboratories like those at CSU.

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.