News

29/12/2013 Link

The Use of Monkeys at Harvard University

The Use of Monkeys at Harvard University

Harvard University was recently fined for animal welfare violations in the care of monkeys used for research. Countless monkeys are used for research at Queen’s, but we have no comparable oversight, and so a) we have no way of knowing how many monkeys are being used here; b) we don’t know what experiments are being conducted on monkeys; and c) monitoring of Queen’s research is conducted by the Canadian Council on Animal Care, a pro animal research body, using guidelines which have no legal force, and a completely secretive process in which violations by Queen’s of the voluntary animal welfare guidelines are never revealed.

09/12/2013

Rights Group is Seeking Legal Person Status for Captive Chimpanzee

Congratulations to Steven Wise and the Nonhuman Rights Project. This week they launched writs of habeas corpus on behalf of four chimpanzees in New York State, claiming that their captivity (in private homes, wildlife parks and university research labs) is a violation of the right not to be confined without cause. The NRP team have spent 6 years devising a strategy for shifting animals from the category of property to persons. And they believe that the common law, as traditionally interpreted in New York State, and as applied to chimpanzees, provides the best chance for doing so. Read more here.