Monkey Deaths Spur Anger Over Primate Research at Colleges

Animal rights activists and students who oppose the University of Washington’s primate research center are campaigning against what they see as a new indignity: the university’s plans to construct a facility that would expand its cadre of monkeys.

“The majority of students don’t want the lab to be built,” says Sarah Olson, a junior at Washington and co-president of the school’s animal rights group, Campus Animal Rights Educators. After the University’s board of regents voted a second time to approve the expansion plan in November, activists turned their attention to Skanska, the Sweden-based construction company hired to build the facility. Protesters from Olson's group as well as a separate group, No New Animal Lab, plan to picket Skanska offices in more than a dozen U.S. cities this week. Skanska did not respond to a request for comment.