MADISON, WI – The University of Wisconsin has admitted it continued to break federal law in 2021, according to reports obtained via FOIA by a national research watchdog – the reports list one infant animal death and one injury.
The reports filed by the UW admit one infant monkey death due to failure to return a mother and her offspring to their home enclosure, thereby denying them access to water, and likely impacting the mother’s ability to nurse her offspring.
According to the report: “One infant was euthanized later that day due to poor prognosis for survival.”
In a separate incident an adult monkey was injured because of being returned to the wrong enclosure, one which allowed monkeys to fight, causing a tongue injury.
The continuing federal violations have drawn a new federal complaint from SAEN, a national watchdog nonprofit that monitors U.S. research facilities for illegalities and animal abuse.
SAEN’s complaint alleges multiple new violations of federal animal handling standards, and calls for the maximum penalty of $10,000 per infraction, per animal.
The new animal handling violations come after an Aug. 18, 2021, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture inspection in which a CRITICAL violation was also issued for violating animal handling regulations.
That inspection follows a hefty $74,000 federal fine levied against the University of Wisconsin in 2020, also for racking up numerous federal animal handling violations. The violations connected to the fine dated all the way back to 2015.
According to federal reports, the University of Wisconsin has violated exactly the same single federal regulation virtually continuously for the last six years.
“The inept staff at the University of Wisconsin can’t even keep the animals in the correct cages and uninjured long enough to perform the experiments,” said Michael A. Budkie, A.H.T., SAEN co-founder. “How is it that this facility can’t make the changes necessary to stop violating a single federal regulation?”
SAEN’s new complaint, which contains all relevant documents is available at: https://saenonline.org/news-
