U.S. Agriculture Department Faults Treatment of Lab Animals at U. of Louisiana

Washington — Two months after the Humane Society of the United States used an undercover video to criticize the treatment of primates at the New Iberia Research Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, federal investigators have agreed that there’s a problem.

Agents from the Department of Agriculture, after visiting the facility on March 17, issued a five-page report describing six specific areas in which the New Iberia center didn’t comply with federal law for the protection of animals.

The issues include a failure to transport the primates safely, to house the animals in a manner that protects them from the elements, and to properly sedate them during experiments and monitor them afterward.

The Humane Society, in its report in March, described at least 338 possible violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act at the facility, through practices that included routinely using “powerful and painful dart guns” on the primates, who respond to their captivity with self-destructive behaviors such as tearing wounds into their arms and legs.

The New Iberia Research Center, in a statement provided to The Scientist, a magazine, said the facility already had resolved five of the six violations and had until October 30 to fix the remaining item, concerning the proper heating of an outdoor enclosure for African green monkeys.

The Humane Society, in its response to the federal findings, said the government should have caught such violations during an inspection last year and called for fines and an end to federal research grants for any facilities guilty of such violations in the future. —Paul Basken