Here’s a roundup of this week’s biggest news stories related to animal research—all the recent media coverage you need to know right now to be the most effective activist for animals in labs.
Mouse Passes Mirror Test, Joining Elite Club of ‘Self-Aware’ Animals
Bronwyn Thompson, 12/6/2023
“Joining the likes of killer whales and bottlenose dolphins, plus a number of primates, a common [lab-bred C57BL/6] mouse has passed what’s known as the mirror test, backed up by gene mapping, that suggest it may possess well-developed self-recognition.” Full Story →
A Year After Their Dramatic Rescue, the Envigo Beagles Are Living Their Best Lives
Daniella Byck & Andrew Beaujon, 12/5/2023
“The company that owned these dogs once called them ‘research models.’ You might know them as beagles. A year earlier, these animals were among the roughly 4,000 rescued from a facility in Cumberland, Virginia, where they’d been bred for scientific experiments.”
“They celebrate the only birthday ever recorded for most of them: the date these research models got to become dogs.” Full Story →
$20,000 Monkeys: Inside the Booming Illicit Trade for Lab Animals
Phoebe Weston, 12/7/2023
“An international shortage of lab monkeys has driven up prices, incentivising a booming illicit trade . . . As the trade [] expands, a once-thriving species is now on the edge….”
“Long-tailed macaques are the most heavily traded primate species in the world . . . and much of this is for laboratory research.”
“In the past 30 years, the wild population of long-tailed macaques has fallen by 40%, with a further 50% decline predicted over the coming three generations. One reason for this decline is over-utilisation for scientific purposes.” Full Story →
Bill Maher Blasts NIH for ‘Colossal Failure’ of Animal Testing: ‘Start Helping People’
Heather Hamilton, 12/5/2023
“Bill Maher suggests that no additional tax dollars should be given to the National Institutes of Health until its practices concerning animal testing are reconsidered. ‘Let’s make sure they’re doing and funding actual science,’ Maher says….”
“‘Call me crazy, but I think it might be a good idea for the country’s premier health agency to act on what the science has shown. Hurting and killing animals in pointless tests is a colossal failure,’….” Full Story →
PETA Claims Monkeys Harmed at UMass Amherst Lab, Demands Feds Investigate
Khier Casino, 12/5/2023
“Agnes Lacreuse, a professor at UMass-Amherst who studies menopause using marmosets, is accused . . . of violating the Animal Welfare Act after one monkey in her lab escaped confinement and injured another caged monkey.”
“The recent incident is just one of four possible animal welfare violations in Lacreuse’s laboratory, PETA said.” Full Story →
Elon Musk’s Neuralink is Just a Regular Animal Lab
Rise for Animals, 12/6/2023
The media has paid great attention to Neuralink this year, especially as Elon Musk has repeatedly lied about the company (not) causing the deaths of nonhuman primates and as whistleblowers have stepped forward to describe the horrors endured by the monkeys subjected to the company’s experiments. But—tragically and despicably—Neuralink is not actually unique within the animal research industry. Full Story →