UW research kept animals restrained

By Aaron Nathans June 15, 2001

In a 12-month period in 1997-98, 181 rhesus monkeys and 116 marmosets were restrained in chairs, many for up to four days and eight hours, as part of research at UW-Madison.

UW-Madison made those facts public as part of its annual report to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The primates are used in experiments based in the Harlow Primate Lab and the Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center.

The 1997-98 numbers are the most recent such figures made public. The figures appeared in a report issued Thursday by the Ohio-based group Stop Animal Exploitation Now! One hundred and 50 rhesus monkeys and 116 marmosets were restrained to chairs for up to four days and eight hours as part of a study of fluids of the hypothalamus, which is part of the brain.

Twelve rhesus monkeys were also restrained in a chair for up to four days to study fluids of the amygdala, another part of the brain.

Nineteen rhesus monkeys were restrained to chairs for up to 12 hours at a time for neuroanatomical and behavioral studies.

The report also noted 150 rhesus monkeys were deprived of water for up to 20 hours in a behavioral study. And 174 rhesus monkeys participating in an aging study had their daily calorie intake restricted by 30 percent. Sixty rhesus monkeys and 70 marmosets were deprived of water for up to 14 hours a day for five days for conditioned taste aversion training.

The report also indicated that UW-Madison performed 263 experiments on dogs and 145 on cats involving pain or distress that was mitigated by anesthesia or another tranquilizer.

Other animals used in UW experiments during that period were guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, sheep, pigs, cows, gerbils, chinchilla, mink, ferrets and goats. The largest group of test animals used in tests causing pain or distress was hamsters (1,322).